by Annie Groves
‘Oh, why did you do this to me, George?’ she cried.
If he truly loved her as George said he did, Sally reasoned as salty tears rolled down her cheeks and wet her pillow, he wouldn’t have put her through this pain knowing he could easily have avoided joining the Royal Navy. He should have stayed home to care for the wounded that were already here.
It seemed, she thought as the agonising feeling of loss was already ripping her apart, that she was destined to lose everybody she ever loved. What chance did her baby sister, Alice, have if Sally couldn’t hold on to the people she loved? Sobbing quietly now, Sally knew how Tilly felt when Drew went back to America. However, she didn’t have a clue how she was going to tell Callum that she was not available for courtship no matter how much he hinted that it would be wonderful if they could get together again.
‘David, that man keeps staring at me,’ Dulcie said after their main course of roast beef and all the trimmings was brought to their table, looking delicious and more than Dulcie had seen for the past three years. Olive was an excellent manager, the best, but even she couldn’t produce a spread like this. And she was determined to enjoy it all the more after the delay when the air-raid siren had sounded.
‘He has taste, my darling,’ David replied, taking her hand and gently kissing it. ‘He is probably wondering why a battered old airman like me is dining with such an exquisite woman.’
‘I’ll give you “battered old airman”,’ Dulcie said in mock horror. ‘I don’t have anything to do with battered, or old, and I am proud to tell anybody that you are my husband.’
‘Oh, Dulcie, I’m glad you’re on my side because you would make a formidable enemy,’ David laughed in a carefree manner that belied the surreptitious glance at the man Dulcie had pointed out.
‘I know him … well, I know of him,’ David said in low tones. ‘He was at one of mother’s little soirees before the war. He’s in the newspaper business – American – knows a lot of people.’
‘Isn’t that …?’ Dulcie’s attention had already wandered as she gazed, wide-eyed, at a couple of faces she had only ever seen in films and David smiled; he was going to enjoy married life with Dulcie, she was such a tonic.
‘Dulcie, darling, put your beautiful lips together, you will catch a fly,’ David grinned, his eyes full of amusement as her throaty laugh echoed around the opulent restaurant.
‘I don’t know that a common fly could afford the Dorchester, David,’ she remarked.
‘Oh, Dulcie, I do love you,’ David said. ‘I am going to make you the happiest woman in the whole world.’
‘You already have, my darling,’ Dulcie said, admiring the glint of her new wedding ring as it glimmered in the light from the sparkling chandeliers.
David was in the middle of explaining the history of the Dorchester as they finished their delicious meal with wonderful, mouth-watering chocolate floating islands Dulcie had never seen before.
‘Did you know,’ David said in conspiratorial tones, ‘that a lot of the aristocrats have closed up their huge houses and will now live here for the duration of the war?’ Dulcie was amazed that people could actually afford to leave their homes and live in a top-class five-star hotel, not just for one night, but for months, possibly years.
‘Most of the servants have left their posts because they can earn more money working in the munitions factories,’ he said to Dulcie, who was listening intently. ‘You cannot get a decent skivvy for love nor money, these days.’ He laughed out loud at Dulcie’s astonished expression. ‘I’m only pulling your leg,’ he continued, ‘but it is the truth, the rich and famous do actually live here.’
‘I thought I was seeing things when that actress … what’s her name?’ Dulcie lightly pinched her lower lip and her perfectly arched brows creased in concentration. ‘She was in that film … what’s it called …? The one about …’
‘It doesn’t matter, Dulcie,’ David smiled. ‘I know who you mean.’ He didn’t have a clue who she was talking about, but surmised they didn’t have time to go through the whole of the British as well as American acting nobility before she finally got the right name.
‘Do you think I will know anybody?’
‘Keep this under your hat, but I have it on good authority that Mr Churchill has been here for talks and also Queen Elizabeth and the princesses have dined here. However, that is top secret so mum’s the word.’ David gave a knowledgeable nod of his head, enjoying his new wife’s wide-eyed wonderment.
Dulcie looked around in case any of them decided to show up at dinner. She wasn’t interested in stuffy old politicians but film stars and especially royalty were a different matter altogether. ‘Tell me, David, which film stars …?’ This was the best day of her life. She could hardly finish her meal, she was so busy watching every glamorous patron and covetously admiring their furs and jewels. The music was playing and the whole day had been wonderfully romantic, she knew, but this was the icing on the cake. This is what she had always dreamed of in her little back room in Stepney. Her, a girl from the East End, living it up with the posh people. Who’d’ve thought it?
She was listening to the wonderful music when Geraldo, with his band members behind him, asked the audience for requests of their favourite tune and Dulcie realised that now was the ideal time for the song composed by Ted Heath, ‘That Lovely Weekend’, which was sung so beautifully by Dorothy Carless, and had become an immediate wartime hit. It would round off their wedding day perfectly, she thought as she excused herself as if to go to the powder room, but instead she made a discreet request to one of the band members.
She hadn’t told David of her little surprise and his face was a picture when Geraldo himself announced the tune for ‘the newly-weds Group Captain and Mrs James-Thompson’. Dulcie had never been so proud in all her life as the whole room stood and gave them a terrific round of applause. She couldn’t wait to tell the girls back in Article Row; they would be green with envy, she was sure.
At a nearby table watching the airman and his dazzling companion beaming with obvious pleasure as the room erupted in applause, an American man hooked his index finger at the waiter and beckoned him over.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘is this the young lady’s wedding day?’
The waiter nodded discreetly. ‘Group-Captain and Mrs James-Thomson are staying here in the honeymoon suite, sir.’
‘The honeymoon suite, you say? Then bring out your finest champagne and take it to them with my compliments … Vintage … Bollinger … Krug … can you do that?’
‘Certainly, sir,’ the waiter said patiently.
‘Good man,’ said the five-star general before stopping the waiter once more. ‘But hey, it’s from a well-wisher – no names, right?’
‘Very good, sir,’ said the straight-backed, immaculately uniformed attendant who moved with such silent grace he seemed to glide in the direction of the wine cellar.
David was in deep conversation with his new wife when the waiter came to their table and told them that a gentleman across the room had sent over a bottle of champagne in honour of their wedding day. David, noticing that Dulcie was positively glowing with happiness, looked over to where the American was sitting and nodded his thanks to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.
‘See what happens when you go announcing our wedding day to the band?’ David smiled.
The Commander gave a nod and a little smile and accepted David’s thanks with a dismissive wave of his hand before disappearing up the magnificent stairs.
‘Oh, David, this is the most wonderful day of my life,’ Dulcie breathed, realising there was a lot that she had to learn about how the other half lived. Where she came from most people had never even seen a bottle of expensive champagne let alone drunk some. People were too busy keeping body and soul together – and most of the women in Stepney didn’t even touch alcohol, unless you counted the odd gill of cream stout on a special occasion.
Only a Mother Knows
SIXTEEN
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For the third time that week, Agnes had to walk home from her work at the underground station alone as Ted had been moved over to Bethnal Green to stand in for a train driver who had lost his roof in the previous night’s bombing. The air raids were not as frequent as they had been during the Blitz but they were still an ever-present threat.
Hurrying through the blackout trying to pick her way through the dark streets towards Holborn and home, Agnes tried to take her mind off pitch-black nooks and crannies by going over Dulcie’s wedding day last week and dreaming of what her life would be like when she and Ted became man and wife.
His mother still didn’t talk to her on the rare occasion she went to Ted’s home, a cramped little flat in the Guinness Trust buildings which Ted’s mum kept all neat and tidy, even when Agnes complimented Mrs Jackson on how clean her stairs were; because she was always washing them down with boiling water and Lysol disinfectant they always smelled lovely and clean, but Mrs Jackson didn’t seem interested in anything that Agnes had to say and merely nodded to let her know she had heard her.
Trying to ignore the darkness and stop her nerves jangling at every little noise that, no matter how innocent, still had the power to terrify her, Agnes imagined herself doing all those wifely things when she and Ted got married. She had been watching Olive closely when she cooked the meals and was learning a lot from her landlady, who showed her how she worked out her coupons and points to make sure they all had an equal share.
A small, though obvious, noise alerted Agnes to the possibility that someone was following her. Don’t be silly, she thought quickly, it’ll be someone going home the same way, that’s all. She forced herself to think this otherwise the scream that was lying in wait at the back of her throat would leap forth and wake the whole neighbourhood.
Not far to go until she was home safe and sound, Agnes thought as she rounded the corner at the top of Article Row. As far as she could tell the row was deserted as there were no sounds of people coming or going, just the light tread of another pair of feet behind her. Agnes began to quicken her step and if she wasn’t mistaken, the footfall behind her speeded up too. She only had a couple of houses to go and she would be home. The footsteps were coming closer. They were right behind her. Instinctively she began to move faster, and faster, until she was almost at a trot. And as she reached Olive’s gate she put her hand on the latch, every nerve in her body screaming, every sinew taut; the latch was stiff in the early winter smog and Agnes put all her weight on it to prise it down. Just as she managed to get it free a hand shot out and touched her arm and Agnes could contain the scream no longer.
‘Leave me alone! I’ll call a policeman!’ she yelled as the door to number 13 suddenly opened.
‘Agnes, are you all right?’ Olive, her concern obvious, came hurrying down the pathway towards her and to Agnes’s relief whoever it was fled from the pathway and hurried down the street. ‘Do you want me to get Sergeant Dawson?’ Olive asked, but Agnes shook her head, too badly shaken to speak.
‘Come on, love,’ said Olive, ‘let’s get you inside.’
After a cup of cocoa and a good talk with Olive and Tilly, Agnes felt a lot better and much more relieved. ‘I probably scared myself,’ she admitted, wrapping her hands around her cup, grateful for the hot, soothing drink. ‘I was dreaming about married life with Ted, not a care in the world.’ She blushed as she realised she had just told them about her innermost thoughts. Smiling shyly she continued, ‘I didn’t hear anything at first and then I thought I heard someone fall off the kerb, well, stumble more than fall, and that’s when I became aware that there was someone behind me and even then, although I was alert, I didn’t think they would get so close as to touch me.’
‘You must have been terrified,’ Tilly said, her eyes wide. ‘I’ll teach you some self-defence lessons tomorrow that we learned in camp.’
‘I think I worked myself up into hysterics,’ Agnes said, safe in the knowledge she was amongst good friends now. ‘Whoever it was might only have wanted a light for their cigarette.’
‘But you can’t be too careful in the blackout,’ Tilly offered and they all agreed.
Staring with unseeing eyes out of the window on her way back to camp, Tilly didn’t register the green fields or skeletal trees speeding past. It didn’t look as if Drew wanted anything more to do with her now he was back home with his own family; she had expected at least one letter when she got home but was sadly mistaken. Maybe he could be a completely different person when he was with his own kind, but she doubted it. He was far too caring and always thought of others before himself. Or at least she thought he did. She found it hard to doubt the loving words he had spoken to her before he left when he gave her that one last kiss … to build a dream on, he had said. And she had been building dreams ever since. Especially in the middle of a dark lonely night back at camp surrounded by twenty-nine other girls with their own stories to tell.
There were many different personalities in the world, she realised after being with women from every walk of life during her training. From debutantes to the deprived, everyone was the same in uniform, but would they be the same girls in civvies?
As dusk darkened the autumnal sky, the guard reminded the passengers to pull down their blackout blinds if they wanted to read by the train’s dim side lights. Tilly settled herself for the rest of her journey back to camp and she recalled the first stirrings of delight at seeing Rick again.
Grateful for the dim light she closed her eyes and her fingers automatically sought Drew’s ring that was now on the leather string around her neck along with her ‘dog tags’ giving her name, rank, and blood group. Her thoughts returned to the joy of Dulcie’s wedding day – especially when Rick surprised his sister by appearing in time to give her away. Poor Rick, thought Tilly, it was such a shame his eyesight had been damaged by a bomb blast. She sincerely hoped that he would make a full recovery, before suddenly realising the elation she thought would always elude her without Drew seemed not to be so intense now. Yet she still loved him with all her heart and she knew deep down that he would come back to her one day and until then she would wait for him.
Olive, being the stoic, no-nonsense type of woman the country could depend on in time of crisis, had already volunteered to do fire-watching duty. She did so before it became compulsory for her to do a minimum forty-eight hours a month, regardless of the strain she was already under, looking after Sally’s baby sister and the rest of the family, as well as her WVS duties. And as she walked through the chilly blackout she thanked her lucky stars that she wasn’t employed in premises where she would be liable for compulsory duty, as there weren’t enough hours in the day.
Branches of the Women’s Home Defence Corps were springing up in many districts as the dark nights drew in, and Mrs Windle, the vicar’s wife, asked Olive if she would accompany her on visits to various outlying districts to teach women how to handle rifles and hand grenades as she didn’t like to travel alone in the dark. She told Olive that Mr Churchill insisted they would never have to – nor be encouraged to – use them in self-defence, which made Olive wonder why they had to learn to use them in the first place? However, she had been happy to be of assistance making tea and sewing fishing nets whilst the others learned how to safely pull a trigger.
‘In one unit alone there are over a hundred women of all ages, who want to defend their homes and family,’ Mrs Windle told the women gathered in their local church hall, her face alight with enthusiasm. Olive hadn’t been so sure about the self-defence lessons at first; she didn’t like the idea of pulling a gun on somebody, no matter who they were. She wouldn’t want it on her conscience for the rest of her life and reasoned that she was only here to accompany Mrs Windle through the blacked-out streets.
‘We don’t want to fight! Of course we don’t,’ said the vicar’s wife, who had blossomed in wartime from a rather mousey flower-arranger into a plain-speaking woman who got things done, ‘but if it comes down to it we must protect ourse
lves and our homes, especially when the Ministry of Home Security reminds us that invasion conditions differ widely from blitz conditions – meaning that military labour will not be available for civil purposes.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Olive as the audience murmured their agreement, especially when Mrs Windle pointed out strong women should not be cowed by threats and rumours.
‘I don’t like answering my front door when it goes dark,’ Nancy Black called out from the front of the audience, ‘and that can be any time from four o’clock these days. It makes me feel like a prisoner in my own home.’
‘I can’t see any self-respecting marauder having a go at you, Nancy,’ a voice at the back answered, much to the amusement of everybody – except Nancy, who shrugged her shoulders and pursed her skinny lips.
‘You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face if the Germans get past Wapping,’ said Nancy, taking no part in the jocular interlude … as was usual, Olive noticed.
‘Now, ladies, we are all on the same side here, so let us all get on with it.’ Mrs Windle seemed so eager to make them understand how important this exercise was. Olive knew that women were getting worried about safety during the blackout and worried not only for themselves but their homes, too. Rumours abounded of midnight raids on poor defenceless women who had no men to protect them and as most of their children were in another part of the country it seemed only right that they should defend themselves.
The last rumour about midnight raids had come straight from Barney who, although he had become a model child of late under the guidance of Archie Dawson, still had a very vivid imagination, and scared the life out of less-robust women who spent many a long night alone when their husbands were on air-raid precaution duties.
‘If anybody should come barging into my home when my husband is away I will have no compunction about shooting them.’ Nancy had been only too ready to sign up to the Women’s Home Defence Corps, Olive observed, recalling that her next-door neighbour felt it her duty to know how to pull the pin on a hand grenade and blow the blighters to smithereens, in her own enthusiastic words.
