by Annie Groves
Thanks to Mrs Gibson, the WVS worker, she now knew that her father’s ship had been torpedoed and sunk on its way to Canada and that many lives had been lost. Rosie knew from growing up listening to her father’s tales that the waters where they had been attacked were icy and that a man could not survive in them for very long. A tremor shook her. She couldn’t bear to think of her father dying in that cold dark sea. She couldn’t bear to think of what he might have suffered. She prayed that he might have died very quickly, and not been alone there, waiting for death, knowing that it was inevitable.
She was completely alone now with no one of her own. No one at all. Had her father really believed that she was his child or had he just told her that to comfort her? She wanted so desperately to be his. She would be his. She would never ever let anything into her life that could make her not be. She would dedicate her life to making him proud.
It was time for her to leave the shelter, but she had nowhere to go, no home and no job either after the end of this week. She wanted to be anywhere but here. And then she remembered Enid talking about her cousin joining the Land Army because she wanted to get away from Liverpool. Just like she did. She hated the thought of being so close to the sea now.
She found the office easily enough and stood outside along with several other girls, waiting for it to open.
‘Bombed out?’ one of them asked sympathetically.
It was a question that Rosie was getting accustomed to hearing. ‘Yes.’
‘Us, an’ all,’ another girl in the queue piped up. ‘Me mam said I might as well come down here and sign up because at least that way I’d have a roof over me head.’
Rosie was the first in the queue and the recruitment officer was brisk and efficient. By the end of the morning Rosie had filled in the necessary forms, undergone a brief medical and been enrolled in the Women’s Land Army.
‘You’ll be sent for training first. Come back tomorrow morning and we’ll have your instructions ready for you. Here’s an address where you can get a billet for tonight. You can go round there now and leave your stuff, if you like. Mrs Fraser puts up a lot of our girls for us, she’s a good sort,’ she told Rosie. ‘When you come back in the morning you’ll get your uniform,’ she added with a smile.
Rosie couldn’t believe it was so easy. A whole new life beckoned, a life where she could forget – or at least block out – her pain.
The girls at the shop had been tiptoeing around her all day since they had heard what had happened, and now Rosie was glad to be escaping from their pity into the sharpness of the early evening air. She had been forced to tell Enid what she had done because she had been so late for work, and then when Mrs Verey had congratulated her so warmly in front of the others on her patriotism she had burst into tears. She had then felt obliged to tell them about her father.
Now it was only just beginning to sink in that she would not be coming back to the Bold Street shop. In addition to her grief she was now experiencing a stomach-churning mixture of apprehension and disbelief at her impulsive actions.
‘Rosie.’
Her eyes widened with shocked guilt. Rob! She had almost forgotten about him. What on earth was she going to say?
‘Do you fancy the pictures tonight? I’m on duty later but if we go now—’
‘I’m sorry, Rob, I can’t.’ She was growing more sick with nervous misery by the second. There was nothing else for it; she would just have to tell him the truth. The words came tumbling out in a guilty rush. ‘There’s been a telegram…It’s Dad,’ she told him starkly. ‘Missing, believed dead.’
‘Aw, Rosie…’ He made to take her in his arms, his compassion increasing her feelings of guilt.
Quickly she stepped back from him, knowing that she had to tell him what she had done, but still trying to put off doing so. ‘The telegram came yesterday. Dad’s sister opened it even though it was addressed to me. When I got in she’d got all my stuff packed up. She told me she wanted me to leave. She never wanted me anyway; she only let me stay because of Dad.’ The staccato sentences were all she was capable of saying; her tight self-control her only way of dealing with her feelings. She could see the shocked sympathy in Rob’s eyes, and for a moment she nearly wavered and let the pain take her into his arms. But she knew that once she did that she would have to stay there, and she couldn’t do that. Not now.
‘Don’t you worry, Rosie,’ Rob tried to comfort her. ‘I’ll look after you. I’ll find somewhere for us and we can be married quick, like. It would be what your dad would have wanted.’
This was dreadful, even worse than she had anticipated. ‘No…we can’t.’
‘Why not? If you’re thinking it’s disrespectful then—’
‘No, it isn’t that.’
‘Then what?’
‘I’ve signed up for the Land Army.’
She could almost feel Rob’s shock filling the air between them. His mouth opened as though he was going to say something, then closed again. He shook his head, obviously unable to take in what she had said, and then demanded in a thickened raw voice, ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. She was feeling more guilty and upset by the minute, unable to explain to Rob about the previous night or how she had felt. ‘I just know that I’ve got to get away from here, Rob.’ To somewhere where no one knew her, somewhere where she could be the person she wanted to be; somewhere where she had no past with Aldo in it and no one to remind her about him. She couldn’t tell Rob any of that, though. She could barely understand or accept it herself.
‘At least in the Land Army I’ll be doing my bit.’
‘You could have done that here.’
‘I need to get away,’ she burst out, unable to hold the words back any longer.
‘From me?’
The pain in his voice wrenched at her tender heart. She hated hurting him like this.
‘It isn’t you. You’re the kindest person, Rob, and I…I think ever such a lot of you.’
‘But not enough to marry me.’ His voice was flat and tight now with disillusionment and pain.
‘I never said that I would,’ Rosie struggled to defend herself. ‘You’ll find someone else, Rob, another girl who will make you happier than I can.’
Rob lunged towards her, taking her in his arms and kissing her with a fierce, angry passion she wasn’t used to, prising apart her lips with his tongue. Rosie could feel the cold rough scrape of his unshaven jaw and smell the hot male scent of his skin. A wave of emotion she didn’t understand surged through her, making her eyes sting with held-back tears of regret. Everything would be so much easier if she could be the girl he wanted her to be; but she wasn’t. Her guilt made her endure the unwanted passion of his kiss until he let her go. He was breathing heavily, his face red.
‘I thought you were different,’ he told her bitterly, ‘but you aren’t, are you? You’re just like her, that mother of yours.’
Rosie recoiled as though he’d hit her. Hot words of denial trembled on the tip of her tongue, but she held them back, knowing with instinctive female wisdom that it was kinder to leave him with the heat of his anger to cling to than the dull pain of a love she could never return.
‘You think you’ll find someone else better than me, but you won’t, and just you think on that and me when you’re cleaning out pigsties,’ he told her bitterly.
He had gone before she could say anything, turning on his heel and leaving her standing alone. She knew it was her own fault that this had happened but that still didn’t stop her from feeling the sharp pain of it. She stood watching him until he disappeared from sight, tempted to run after him and call him back but knowing that she must not.
‘Right, Price. Bennett here will take you down to the stores and help you sort out your uniform, and then you will be given a travel warrant. Jolly good.’
A sharp nudge in Rosie’s ribs from the elbow of the young woman standing at her side warned her that her brisk interview with the recruitment officer was over.
Dutifully Rosie followed ‘Bennett’, the uniformed redhead, down a corridor and some stairs and then through a maze of small interconnecting cellars until eventually they reached the storeroom.
She was hurrying along at such a pace that Rosie could barely keep up with her. She came to a halt so abruptly that Rosie nearly cannoned into her.
‘In here.’ As she pushed open a heavy door she called out dourly, ‘Here’s another one for you to kit, our Parker. Pity you’re a bit on the skinny side,’ she told Rosie. ‘The kit has come up a bit big, sort of one size fits all only they don’t so you’ll have to mek sure you’ve got a decent belt to hold everything up or in; that is, unless you’re handy with a needle.’
The first thing that struck Rosie as she stepped into the long narrow cellar wasn’t so much the solitary light bulb, which threw more shadows in the cavernous space than it did light, as the smell of cloth and dye, so strong that she nearly recoiled from it.
‘Parker here will sort you out. When you’re ready, come back upstairs. You’ll find me in the third office on the left off the main corridor. I’ll have your travel warrant waiting for you and your other papers.’
Rosie watched her go, wondering in some alarm how on earth she was going to be able to manage to find her way back.
‘Right then, let’s get started. Here’s a list of the full uniform.’
Rosie took the piece of paper she was handed, and read it slowly.
‘Have they told you where they’ll be sending you yet?’ Parker asked Rosie.
Rosie shook her head.
‘Mmm. Well, let’s see, the last lot were sent down to Norfolk so my guess is you won’t be going there.’ The older woman kept on talking as she sized Rosie up and then disappeared, returning with her arms full of a variety of garments.
‘If it is Reaseheath you’re going to, then they’ll expect you to have the full kit. Do things proper there, they do.’
Rosie was glad that the landlady she had been billeted with the previous night had offered to let her leave her pillowcases there this morning. She wouldn’t have liked to have turned up here dragging all her belongings around with her and looking very shabby, she thought, as Parker put the pile of clothes down on the nearby table and started to tick them off on her fingers.
‘Right, that’s the breeches,’ she announced, indicating the corduroy pants that seemed like the ones the recruitment officer had been wearing – baggy at the hip and narrowing just below the knee. ‘And here’s the mackintosh and the jacket.’ She put a coat and a fitted tweed jacket on top of the breeches. ‘And the hat.’ She added a brown felt hat to the pile. ‘And here’s the rest.’
‘The rest’ consisted of a khaki overall coat, two fawn shirts with turn-down collars, two pairs of dungarees, three pairs of fawn stockings, a pair of heavy brown shoes, a pair of rubber gumboots, a green armlet with a red royal crown on it, and a green V-necked jumper. Rosie just knew from looking at it that the jumper would itch.
‘Oh, and you’ll be given a bicycle as well.’
‘Ought I to try them on?’ Rosie asked uncertainly.
‘There isn’t any point,’ Parker told her drily. ‘They come in three sizes, small, medium and large. I reckon you’ll be small. Oh, and you’ll need a kitbag. Here…Now you’d better get yourself back upstairs. Find your way all right, can you?’ She had disappeared into the darkness of the storeroom before Rosie could answer, leaving her to gather up her new uniform and put it carefully into her kitbag.
Fifteen minutes later, having taken only two wrong turnings, she was standing with several other girls who looked as uncertain and apprehensive as she felt, waiting to be given her instructions and her travel warrant.
The three girls in front of Rosie were all told they were being sent to Norfolk, but when it came to Rosie’s turn she was told to report to the station for five o’clock that evening to wait for a train to take her to Crewe.
‘You’ll be met there by someone from Reaseheath College. That’s where you’ll get your four-week training before you’re sent to work on a farm. When you’re working you’ll be paid twenty-four shillings per week, and out of that you’ll be expected to pay for your billet. Every six months you’ll be given a travel warrant to go home and see your family. If you end up on a milking team you’ll only get half a day off every week, otherwise you’ll get a day and a half. If you’re put on a gang that goes from farm to farm then it’s up to whoever’s in charge of the gang to sort out your off-duty time,’ Bennett explained briskly before demanding, ‘Any questions?’
Rosie shook her head. If she had had any she didn’t think she would have dared to ask them.
‘Very well, then. Good luck, Price. And remember your country is depending on you.’
Rosie looked uncertainly at the details of how she could be contacted, which she had written down on the piece of paper. She owed her aunt nothing – less than nothing she decided fiercely. And she certainly didn’t want her to think that she actually wanted to keep in touch with her. But she couldn’t help thinking about her dad and what he would have wanted. Which was why she was here, standing outside her aunt’s house.
Rosie lifted the knocker. She didn’t have to let her know what she was doing, she certainly didn’t want to have to speak to her. She let the knocker fall back gently and turned to leave. She had got as far as the gate when, on some impulse she didn’t understand, she turned back and ran up to the door, slipping the note with her details and a forwarding address on it through the letter box.
This time as she opened the gate she felt as though her dad was smiling down on her approvingly.
* * *
She had been right. The green pullover did itch, Rosie acknowledged stoically, as she looked surreptitiously around the station, hoping to see someone else wearing the same uniform. She felt conspicuous in it, and very conscious of the looks she was attracting, especially from the RAF group standing a few yards away.
It was only now beginning to dawn on her what she had done: what she had committed herself to, and what she would be losing. She shivered and fought down the uneasy feeling growing in her stomach. She could have let Rob take care of her instead of doing this. He had wanted to. But what if she had and then one day out of the blue she had done something he didn’t like and he had accused her of being like her mother?
‘Hello, there. Are you bound for Reaseheath College as well, by any chance?’ The cheery female voice with its unfamiliar accent had Rosie turning round in relief, at being distracted from her own uncomfortable thoughts.
‘Yes I am,’ she confirmed, smiling at the tall brown-haired girl who was standing in front of her.
‘I’m Mary. Mary Dugdill from Birmingham,’ the other girl introduced herself, extending her hand for Rosie to shake.
‘There’s another eight of us, but the others are looking for somewhere to get a bit of summat to eat.’
‘The buffet’s over that way,’ Rosie told her, nodding her head in the direction of the station’s buffet bar. ‘But I don’t think they’ll find much.’
‘Not to worry. They’re bound to feed us when we get there. We’re lucky, aren’t we, being billeted to Reaseheath for our training?’
‘Are we?’ Rosie asked.
‘Oh, yes. It’s a real agricultural training college where we’ll have proper training. Oh, here come the others now. Are you on your own?’
‘Yes,’ Rosie confirmed.
‘This is Sheila, Jean, Peggy, Brenda, Audrey, Stella, Joy and Pam,’ Mary introduced the others. ‘And you’re…?’
‘Rosie.’
‘Are you from round here then?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m that hungry me stomach thinks that me throat’s bin cut,’ the girl Mary had introduced as Sheila announced. ‘I told yer we should have brought a jam jar of tea and some sarnies with us, Mary. Nine o’clock this morning we left Birmingham. Got held up behind some goods train that had priority, and then they said they was rerouting us through Live
rpool, instead of sending us direct to Crewe. Ruddy war. Here, Pam, get a load of them RAF lads over there. I fancy that handsome one with the dark hair. How far from here is this Reaseheath, Rosie? Do you know?’
‘Not really.’
‘Pity. I was hoping we might meet up with someone with a bit more info on the place, like how far it is from the nearest military base. We want to be near some chaps, after all, otherwise we might just as well have stayed at home.’
Rosie could feel herself tensing.
‘Oh, give over, do, Sheila,’ Pam cut in firmly. ‘You’ll be giving us all a bad name if you keep going on like that about the bloomin’ military. Just because that Canadian flyboy gave you the eye at the Palais the other week and said as how he could get you some stockings don’t mean you have to go acting like you’ve never seen a lad before. You’d fancy anything wi’ trousers on, you would!’
‘Not anything, I wouldn’t,’ Sheila protested vigorously. ‘He’d have to be handsome and have a bit about him. I’m not throwing meself away on just any lad.’
‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t if I were you neither, Sheila,’ one of the other girls laughed. ‘I mean, any chap would be unlucky to get one of us as a date, smelling of cow muck like we’ll be and wearing them wellies we’ve bin given. The lads will run a mile when they see us coming.’
‘We won’t let them get away, though,’ the pretty blonde-haired girl called Stella chirped up, joining in the fun, ‘and we’ll be able to go after them on our bicycles.’
‘Oh, give over, do, you’re making my belly ache I’m laughing that much,’ Mary protested. ‘Anyway, never mind the cow muck, we’ll still scrub up well. And at least with a bit of luck we’ll be away from them ruddy air-raid sirens.’
A sudden silence seized the small group.
‘I need a wee,’ Sheila announced.
Peggy, who seemed shyer than the others, nudged Mary and whispered something to her once Sheila was out of earshot.
‘You might as well know, Rosie, since it looks like we’ll be training up together, I don’t hold with talking about a person behind their back but, like Peggy here says, it’s best if you do know just in case you was to say something by accident, like. Sheila’s mam and dad, along with her nan and her brother and his girl, were all killed in a direct hit by one of them parachute bombs just before Christmas. Sheila was trapped with them until they managed to get her out. She’s me second cousin, Sheila is, and it affected her bad, so when me and Peggy and the others decided to join the Land Army we persuaded Sheila to come along with us. She don’t like to talk about what happened but it explains her behaviour sometimes.’
