An Army of Smiles

by An Army of Smiles (retail) (epub)

  For a while shells fell closer, screaming and seeming to be heading straight for them and the puny soft-top van. They left the van and hurried for the only slightly less doubtful protection of the farm buildings. They saw shrapnel hit the van and the sides were peppered with small holes but fortunately the damage was well away from the petrol tank and it survived in a road-worthy state.

  An hour later, when the guns ahead of them had fallen silent, a large contingent of men came to push further on. The girls disposed of all their stock between the grateful men, the khaki-clad figures laughing and joking as though their situation was nothing to be concerned about, just a bit of a game, the pretence for a few brief moments bringing a touch of sanity into their lives. Ethel promised, somewhat foolishly, that the van would be back later that day.

  They were both shaking with the shock of what they had done as they stood and watched the men freeing, then turning, the van, while others described the route back to their base. Ethel started the engine and headed back wondering how the men could stand the tensions of the fighting day after day, without going crazy. She wished they could all follow them and take advantage of the rest centres, but knew that the war was not over yet. Not by a long way.

  Back at base, with the van showing honourable evidence of their closeness to danger, they stepped out to be greeted by several figures coming forward to check on their safety. The first person Ethel saw was Wesley Daniels.

  He started when he recognized the dirt-streaked face with the hat at its usual rakish angle and said her name in a whisper. His arms raised up as though to embrace her and hers too jerked a little as though to do the same, but something stopped him and he stepped back to allow her to enter the canteen.

  Ethel was shocked both by the suddenness of his appearance and how much he had changed. She looked away after her first glance, convinced it was not Wesley, only someone with a passing likeness. Then another look and another, until she saw in the sad eyes the man she had once known. Wesley had never been anything but slim but the flesh seemed to have fallen from him. His features had sharpened and age had come upon him, there was deep sadness in his eyes and he looked away from her steady gaze as though afraid to face her.

  ‘Wesley?’ she murmured hesitantly and he turned his gaze towards her, half smiled then looked away again. There was no sense of a happy reunion, no joyous relief at Wesley’s survival. It was as though he were someone from a former fantasy life, a stranger who had no part in the present reality. She wondered if they would have anything to say to each other after the years of absence.

  A voice that insisted on being obeyed called them and they began to move towards its irritable insistence. Ethel pointed to Wesley and to Rosie and after brief and oddly strained introductions, the two girls went straight away to report their adventures and receive the reprimand that they knew they didn’t really deserve.

  Ethel was shaking and Rosie knew that it was not because of their recent perilous journey, but the sight of a ghost from her past. She held her friend’s hand to reassure her and they went to stand in front of the man who had summoned them.

  Their explanation about the bridge being down and their attempts to find another route were listened to but discarded. There was no other reason but stupidity for them wandering on to the front line. They listened wearily as they were reminded that they were a liability. ‘Men would have had to help you instead of thinking about what they were doing or their own safety. Your stupidity could have cost lives. What would you have done if the men on that farm had been Germans?’

  ‘Offered them char and a wad?’ Rosie whispered.

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that!’

  Ethel quickly handed her friend a handkerchief to hide her giggles, hoping the officer would presume them to be sobs.

  Wesley was waiting for Ethel when she had showered and finished making an official report.

  ‘Ethel, how are you?’ he asked. ‘Everyone here has been talking about the missing Naafi van. I can’t tell you my surprise that the driver was you.’

  ‘Well, here I am, safe and sound. I thought you were with the NCS serving on ships?’

  She was still strangely ill at ease with this man whom she had once loved and who had vanished from her life so suddenly. They went to the canteen and after insisting that Rosie stayed they slowly caught up with their last four years; but there was to be no great loving reunion. He was unable to tell her how ashamed he felt about leaving her to her father’s anger and she waited, expecting not an apology for his cowardice but an explanation of the hasty departure that had led to more than four years of silence, when her whereabouts had been unknown to him. They sat far apart, like strangers. The conversation faltered and stumbled, both wanting to say how they felt but unable to do so. Rosie tried to wriggle her hand out of Ethel’s and escape but Ethel looked at her and with her eyes pleaded with her to stay.

  Mostly in silence, and through a few inadequate sentences, Ethel was looking at him. He had aged so much, and was so thin and subdued and without a spark of joy. Her mind drifted and she thought of Baba and how exciting their reunions had always been. She tried not to dwell on their last meeting, and Baba’s disappointment and anger when, at her own instigation, they had parted once more.

  Unable to bear the stilted conversation any longer she made an excuse and left him. As soon as she reached her bed she lay on it and wrote to Baba, telling him how much she loved him and was longing to see him again. If she had had any doubts or guilt reguarding Wesley, a few minutes of his company had dispelled them.

  She knew Rosie was keeping out of her way, meeting other girls during her time off, sensing Ethel’s need to talk to Wesley, and she was grateful for her friend’s understanding. Although he had no part in her life any more she felt some obligation to meet him and talk to him but it was far from easy and each time they met she would return to her room with relief and write a loving letter to Baba.

  There weren’t many places for them to go but with Rosie’s help she smuggled Wesley into their room one cold, wet afternoon and tried to break down the invisible barriers and talk. The words wouldn’t come and they sat at separate ends of the room, speaking in bursts of conversation that quickly died, unable to break down the floodgates and return to their previous ease.

  She saw Wesley drive off two days later and was left with a strong feeling of disappointment. When she told Rosie, her friend again insisted it was because of the rift in the family.

  ‘You can’t rebuild the bits you want and discard the rest. Go home, move in and get back to how things used to be, just for a while. Your father has mellowed and accepts his mistakes. Your mam wants you to be her daughter again. And there’s Sid who loves you like the sister you will always be. Get that lot sorted and your feelings for Wesley will slot into place.’

  In her heart, Rosie had hoped that after rediscovering her childhood sweetheart, Ethel might have revived her love for him and forgotten Baba. She wrote to Baba, just a friendly letter, in case there was the slightest hope he might turn to her if Ethel finally rejected him.

  ‘Are you homesick? Do you wish we could go home?’ Rosie asked Ethel a few weeks after their alarming experience, when they were decorating the canteen with a bit of Christmas cheer.

  ‘I want to see it all again. The lights were switched back on in November. That must have been a great moment. No more falling over each other in the blackout.’

  ‘And the Home Guard, Dad’s Army, is no more.’

  ‘There’s still food rationing though and it might last for a long time yet.’

  They stayed in France, following the advancing troops and, later, working for a time in a rest centre in Paris, a beautiful place where men and women could spend their leave before returning to their units. There were dances held and Rosie was more confident after the years away from home and all her experiences, and was a frequently sought partner.

  News of the surrender came rather casually via a man who walked past them as they w
ere setting up the bar, announcing, ‘It’s over. Hitler’s lot have been beaten.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Rosie frowned.

  ‘I thought he said it’s over. D’you think he means the war?’

  Then a group of squaddies ran in, kissed them, pulled them on to the floor and began dancing.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Ethel asked, afraid to presume the words they’d heard was true.

  ‘It’s only over! It’s bloody well over! Unconditional surrender, that’s what’s happened.’

  ‘Mother, put the kettle on, your boy’s comin’ ’ome,’ shouted another. Others ran in shouting, back-slapping, singing. The place filled until there seemed no room to fit in another body. Officers came and shouted orders which went unheard.

  ‘Where are they all coming from?’ gasped Rosie as she and Ethel tried to serve the excited men. ‘I think the whole of the front line is in here.’

  Ethel shouted, ‘Oi, you lot! You’d better be careful. With all the allied forces in our canteen, who’s back there watching Hitler’s lot?’

  The celebration went on all night, then everything calmed down and the men went back to duties with the happy feeling that they would soon be counting the days before they returned to Blighty.

  The war in Europe had ended but there was still the fighting in the Far East. The celebrations of victory in Europe were muted by the fact that there were still men and women on the front lines a very long way from home. Although everyone believed that the end was truly in sight.

  In July 1945 Ethel and Rosie were given home leave.

  ‘We’ve missed most of the celebrations,’ Rosie said excitedly. ‘The street parties, and the crowds gathering in London. But I dare say we’ll have a few of our own.’

  * * *

  The first thing Rosie did was to go to Nan’s house where, to her surprise and delight, she found her mother and her Nan living together, taking in boarders and earning a reasonable living. She went back to the farm where she had worked and looked around, praising the land girls who had done a remarkable job keeping everything going throughout the war years.

  ‘Want your job back do you, Rosie?’ the farmer asked, but she shook her head.

  ‘The Naafi hasn’t finished with me yet and when the war’s finally over, I don’t know what I’ll do. Stay on maybe. While there’s an army there’ll be need for a Naafi.’

  * * *

  Ethel tried to find Baba but he was away and couldn’t be contacted. So she went to Wesley’s house. Wesley was there and they talked for a while, then he offered to go with her to see her father. He had his own demons to put to rest. Walking over the footbridge and up the front path still brought fear to her heart and she reached for Wesley’s hand, smiling reassurance at him, hiding her own terrors.

  The house was neater and better furnished than on her previous visits. The windows shone and the house was pervaded with a smell of polish and a sense of comfortable wealth. There were two girls working on the land, which had been extended into two extra fields. A large greenhouse had been built along a wall and there were areas where soft fruits were grown inside protective netting. Things had certainly improved. As she went upstairs to visit her father, still holding tightly to Wesley’s hand, she expected to see similar changes there.

  Her father looked the same, no extra comforts in the bare little room and still a cup of cold tea standing just out of reach on the bedside table. She guessed it would not be until Sid came home from work that he had any attention. She fed him with some chocolate she had brought, which he seemed to enjoy, then offered him the cold drink. He watched her as he drank and she saw the pain in those round blue eyes which had once frightened her so much, and wanted to weep.

  They didn’t stay long: ‘No longer than a man collecting weekly insurance payments,’ she joked to Wesley. She joked a lot as they went back to his house and later on the way to the bus to start her journey back to her hotel. She felt such shame for the way her father was being treated but couldn’t stay long enough to do anything about it. It wasn’t until Wesley promised to talk to Sid and get something done that she was able to cry.

  Chapter Thirteen

  An official letter reached Ethel via Rosie’s Nan, telling her she was not to return to France but report to a camp in Bedfordshire which was closing down. She was bitterly disappointed that she and Rosie wouldn’t end the war together but a few days later she learned that Rosie’s letter had given the same news. They were going on what might be their last posting, against all the odds, still together.

  Another letter arrived for Ethel, this time from Baba, and he named a time and place for them to meet. Rosie squealed in delight at Ethel’s good news and no one guessed the heartbreak she felt. If only Baba had fallen for me, she whispered into her pillow at night, daring to imagine how perfect life would have been. When Wesley had reappeared in Ethel’s life so unexpectedly, she had prayed for their abandoned love to be revived but it was not to be. Baba was the one promising Ethel a happy future and she, Rosie, was promised nothing but emptiness. She silently reprimanded herself for wishing her friend anything but joy and forced her expression into one of delight.

  ‘Don’t forget that when you and Baba marry, I’m to be chief bridesmaid,’ she reminded Ethel.

  Ethel smiled but said nothing. That Baba loved her she didn’t doubt and her love for him was a certainty but it was not wise to be too confident, that was tempting the fates to torment and play games with you.

  Ethel was still upset about Dai, the man she continued to think of as her father, when she went to see Baba. They met for an hour only between his visits to a suppliers to order and later to collect paint and turps and sundry other requirements. They found a café where they were offered a sandwich of bloater paste with a leaf of lettuce, which neither was able to eat.

  ‘I saw Wesley,’ she told him.

  ‘Any reason for me to be jealous?’ he teased.

  She went on to explain the circumstances that had led to their first unlikely meeting in France and the recent occasion when he had gone with her to visit her father. Baba was upset when he learned of the danger she had faced. ‘Darling girl, I’ve been such a fool. I quarrelled with you as you were leaving, and tried to stop you doing your duty. I let you face danger without the peace of mind that would have helped you to cope. My last words to you should have been words of love and reassurance, not petty anger at not having my own way. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Meet me tonight and show me how sorry,’ she said as his lips met hers in a long-awaited kiss.

  * * *

  For Ethel, that leave was spent either with Baba or in waiting for him, hoping he could wangle a few hours off to spend with her. She had savings, having spent very little of her money while in the service, and she found a small place to stay where Baba could join her whenever he was free. She went to see Rosie’s Nan and stayed for two nights but refused all Rosie’s entreaties to return to see Wesley or her family again. She was still in touch with Sid, but she refused to write to her mother directly and tried not to think about her father in his cold, lonely room.

  ‘Baba is my family and I don’t need anyone else,’ she told Rosie, unaware of how much this still hurt her friend.

  There was one thing stopping Ethel from being truly happy. Although Baba had often talked about his sisters, he had never issued a firm invitation for Ethel to go home with him and meet them. Unlike poor Kate, whose American prospective in-laws had welcomed her lovingly, with long letters and many photographs, she had never had any contact with Baba’s family. So when he announced that he was going home for the weekend, she suggested going with him.

  ‘Not yet, lovely girl,’ he replied. ‘There’s a few things that need sorting before I take you to meet my family.’

  ‘What things? We don’t have secrets, do we?’

  ‘Not between you and me, love, no. But these are other people’s secrets, personal things, not my story to tell. But once everything’s sorted, then I’ll take y
ou and introduce you to all the Morgan family and the neighbours and friends and we’ll have a fabulous celebration.’

  Ethel smiled and swallowed her doubts. How secrets belonging to other people could affect her being introduced to his family she couldn’t imagine, but if she loved Baba then she had to trust him. He would explain one day, there couldn’t be anything in the world he couldn’t tell her.

  Her leave ended and she called to see Rosie to discuss their travel arrangements. Unintentionally she told her friend about Baba’s apparent reluctance to invite her to meet the Morgan family and Rosie hastily reassured her.

  ‘Perhaps his home isn’t as grand as he would like, people can be very silly about such things. Or maybe he has a few girlfriends around who might tell you things he’d rather you didn’t know! Or perhaps he still sleeps with a teddy bear or has Mickey Mouse pictures on his bedroom wall, or keeps spiders as pets, or sucks his thumb when he sleeps or—’

  ‘All right, I’m convinced!’ Ethel laughed at her friend’s ridiculous suggestions. ‘I’ll give him time to say goodbye to childhood and ex-girlfriends.’

  They reported to their new posting and found that their job consisted mostly of packing unwanted stores for return to the Bulk Issue Stores for redirecting. There was still a canteen, and cooking meals and snacks, and making tea and coffee for the men who were dismantling the prefabricated buildings took a lot of their time.

  There were also lists. Dozens of lists stating the number and description of what went into each packing case. The noise of the work of demolition was deafening at times, and as a contrast there was the peaceful scene of sheep once more allowed to graze in the fields, where tents had blossomed like mushrooms and vehicles had rent the silence with their roaring engines.