Dragging himself from the edge of the bed he staggered across to the window and flipped aside the curtains, gasping with pain as the bright light attacked his eyes like daggers. Between the gaps in the warehouses he could see ships of all shapes and sizes bobbing in the murky water. He turned back and that was when he saw the official-looking document lying on the chest of drawers. As he lifted it and began to read his eyes stretched wide and his mouth fell open.
Will report for training in two weeks’ time … His mouth fell open as suddenly everything began to come back to him. He had been with Bean, his rather disreputable friend, and after spending some time with the young army chaps, he suddenly recalled Bean getting all patriotic and suggesting they should sign up to do their bit for king and country.
A loud hammering on his door made his eyes swing towards it and when he opened it, Bean, looking somewhat dishevelled, burst into the room brandishing an identical letter to the one he was reading.
‘Bleedin’ ’ell, matie!’ Bean, who was considerably younger than Ben, ran a hand distractedly through his thick, brown hair. ‘What the ’ell ’ave we let ’usselves in for?’
Bean was a well-known figure about the docks. He made his living – a very comfortable one – wheeling and dealing with the goods that came in from abroad that just happened to fall into his possession. He would openly admit that he lived by his wits and had never done an honest day’s work in his life. He was always the life and soul of any party but today his face was pasty, and Ben saw that his hands were shaking. ‘Do yer reckon we can get outta this?’ he asked, his voice cracking with fear. ‘If we go back to the recruitment office an’ tell the blokes there we were half-cut an’ didn’t know what we were doin’ surely they’ll tell us to rip these up?’
Ben’s lips set in a grim line and suddenly he felt as sober as a judge as he recalled what it had been like in the First World War.
‘No chance. It says here that because of my age I shall be a horse handler. What are you going to do?’
Bean swallowed. ‘I’m army trainin’. That means I’ll be sent to the front, don’t it?’
Ben nodded. ‘I should say so, but what made us do it?’
‘Them young army chaps we were keepin’ company with,’ Bean said bitterly. ‘They were eggin’ us on an’ sayin’ as we were yeller bellies an’ the next thing I remember we were at one o’ the recruitment offices.’
Ben sighed. ‘Well, we’ve done it good an’ proper now. We’ve got no choice but to go.’
‘You speak fer yourself. I ain’t goin’ to be shot down. I’m off. Me old mum will understand. There ain’t many pickin’s round ’ere anyway since the war started. Half the goods ain’t comin’ in anymore so I’ll clear orf an’ try me luck somewhere else till this bloody war is over.’
Ben shrugged. He wouldn’t have expected any more of the lad, if truth be known. He was as shallow as a stream.
‘An’ what are you gonna do?’
Bean’s voice brought Ben’s thoughts back to the present. ‘I shall be going,’ he said quietly. This time there would be no one left behind to worry about him or write to him as there had been the last time. It was a sobering thought. Yes, he would go. Perhaps this was justice for what he had done. But first he intended to put his house in order … just in case he didn’t come back.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
With his back to the station, Giles took a deep breath and took one last lingering look at his adopted hometown. It was market day and people were milling everywhere. He had always loved the market, especially the cattle market, and he would miss wandering about the stalls heaving with livestock. He had said his goodbyes to the family back at Treetops, insisting they didn’t need to accompany him to the station, but now he was wishing he had allowed his grandfather to come with him. It was clear he wasn’t the only one leaving to join the war. Young men were standing about surrounded by weeping mothers, sisters, wives and girlfriends, and turning about Giles kept his eyes trained straight ahead as he moved purposefully towards the platform, suddenly feeling very lonely. And then a figure caught his eye and his steps slowed before she turned and saw him.
‘Livvy!’ Giles couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice as he came abreast of her.
She smiled to hide her embarrassment. Suddenly she wondered if this had been such a good idea after all. She didn’t even know what had prompted her to come but she supposed that now she was here she may as well make the best of it.
‘I, er … didn’t get chance to say goodbye last night so being as I had to pop out on an errand from the office, I thought I’d call by to wish you all the best.’
‘I see … thank you. It was good of you to think of me.’ They faced each other, each looking decidedly uncomfortable and neither of them quite knowing what to say.
‘So, will you be getting leave during your training?’ It was Livvy who broke the silence.
He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, to be honest, but I shall certainly do my best to.’ They were standing in the sunshine on the platform and he noticed the way it had turned her hair to liquid gold. And those eyes – they reminded him of the colour of the bluebells in the woods in the spring. It was funny, he’d never noticed how pretty she was before, he thought, but then they had always seemed to be at cross purposes so perhaps he just hadn’t taken much notice.
A shrill whistle in the distance heralded the approach of the train and suddenly they were surrounded by people all clinging to each other and saying their tearful goodbyes.
‘This is it then.’ She looked at him levelly, at a loss for words again and he nodded as the train came into view further along the track.
‘Yes … this is it.’
‘You, er … just take good care of yourself and I’ll look forward to seeing you when you come home on leave.’
Without thinking she took an involuntary step towards him and suddenly his arm was about her waist and his lips were on hers. Just for a moment she melted against him, responding to his touch, then self-consciously she took a step back, her cheeks aflame.
‘Crikey, all this war stuff is making us all sentimental,’ she said, suddenly her usual off-hand self again and he grinned, displaying a set of very white, straight teeth.
‘Yes, that must be what it is.’ The train had pulled into the station now and people were scrambling to get aboard. ‘I … I’d better go.’
‘Of course.’ She inclined her head and watched as he climbed aboard.
Once on the train he leaned out of the window. ‘Look after Grandad and the horses for me, and thanks for coming, Livvy.’
She nodded as the porter strode along the platform, blowing his whistle and slamming the doors. And then there was a loud whistle as the engine chugged back to life and slowly the train pulled away with Giles still leaning out of the window waving to her. She waved back till the train was lost to sight around a corner and then slowly her fingers rose to touch her lips where he had kissed her.
Don’t be daft, it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, it didn’t mean anything, she told herself. And yet as she walked despondently away, her heart was thumping so loudly she feared people would hear it and there were tears in her eyes.
Three days after Giles had left for training, Livvy came home from work to find Peggy at the lodge playing with the twins. Bobby was now allowing her out of his sight for short periods, so long as his little sister was with people he knew, which Edith took to be a good sign. The twins were always getting into all sorts of trouble, much to Peggy’s amusement. Their hair had grown and formed a halo of springy curls about their small heads and with their cheeky smiles and their deep-blue eyes everyone found them irresistible and spoiled them shamelessly.
‘They love having Peggy to play with,’ her mother remarked as she ushered her to the table for her evening meal, which she had been keeping warm for her. Kathy had slipped over to Cissie’s cottage to pick up some sweet little nightshirts she had made for the twins. They were growing out of the ones
they had again.
‘Mm.’ Livvy began to half-heartedly push the food about her plate and Sunday frowned.
‘Livvy …’ she began cautiously. ‘You don’t seem yourself. Is something troubling you?’
Livvy licked her lips and keeping her eyes on the plate she said quietly, ‘There is actually. You see I’ve been thinking that I should be doing my bit towards this war.’
‘In what way?’ Sunday raised her eyebrow.
‘I, er … I’ve been thinking of enlisting, as it happens.’ Seeing the look of horror on her mother’s face she rushed on. ‘Lots of girls are doing it. I mean, it’s not as if we’d be sent to the front like the men. They need people to work in the NAAFIs, as drivers or as radio operators, all sorts of things. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s a ridiculous idea,’ Sunday answered sharply.
‘But why? I mean I understand that the war hasn’t really affected us in the countryside yet, but we need every hand if we’re to win this war – men and women alike.’
Kathy had just come into the kitchen in time to hear what her sister said and after staring at them both for a moment she piped up, ‘Well, I think that’s an admirable idea. I’ll tell you now if I didn’t have the twins, I’d be signing up to work in one of the field hospitals.’
Sunday shot her a withering look, but Kathy stood her ground. ‘Livvy is right, Mum,’ she pointed out. ‘Women are already doing the jobs that their men did before they signed up so why shouldn’t Livvy be allowed to do her bit if she feels it’s right? She’s a grown woman and quite able to decide for herself what she wants to do.’
Livvy smiled at her gratefully as Sunday stood nervously wringing her hands. The children had become silent as they picked up on the tense atmosphere and eventually Sunday let out a long sigh. She knew when she was beaten and deep down she also knew that Livvy should be allowed to make her own decisions.
‘Then in that case I suppose it’s your choice. So, what will happen next?’
‘I think I’ll call into one of the enlisting offices in my dinner hour tomorrow to make a few enquiries.’
Her mother nodded. It seemed there was no more to be said.
Two days later Livvy enrolled in the WAAF. ‘I shall be going to London to do six weeks’ basic training,’ she told Kathy and her mother when she got home later that day. ‘Then if I pass, I’m going to put my name down to become a balloon operative.’
‘But won’t that involve being in dangerous places where barrage balloons need to be flown?’ Sunday asked in a croaky voice.
Livvy smiled. ‘I will have to do my training in London,’ she admitted. ‘But then I dare say we’ll get shifted about the country.’
‘And when will you have to leave?’
‘I should get my papers within the week.’ Livvy gave her mother’s hand an encouraging squeeze and John, who had popped in to bring some winter vegetables from the cottage garden, gave her a broad smile.
‘I’m proud of you,’ he told her. ‘And I’m sure you’ll look very smart in your WAAF uniform.’
Sunday blinked back tears and added her praise to his. ‘I’m proud of you too, darling. But … I shall miss you dreadfully and worry about you every minute you’re away.’
‘I shall be fine,’ Livvy said breezily, although were she to admit it she was a little nervous. Still, it was done now and there could be no going back.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
January 1940
‘Have you seen this?’ George asked, stabbing his finger at a page in the newspaper he was reading as he and Cissie sat in their cottage one evening in January. ‘It says the River Thames has frozen over for the first time since 1818.’
‘It don’t surprise me,’ Cissie replied from her seat by the fire where she was darning socks. ‘I can’t remember ever having such a bad winter. It’s enough to freeze the hairs off a brass monkey out there an’ there’s no sign of it stoppin’ yet. Still, at least the twins an’ the children are enjoyin’ the snow. It’s a job to get young Bobby off that sledge you made for him.’ Her face became solemn then as she remarked, ‘I don’t know why you even bother to read that paper anymore. It’s full o’ doom an’ gloom. Another two million young men have been called up an’ now we’ve got rationin’. We’re fairly lucky ’ere but folks as live in the towns won’t fare so well.’ She eyed the toast he’d just spread with a generous helping of butter disapprovingly. ‘An’ you’ve got your entire week’s ration on your toast. Two ounces a week is your lot. Unless you want to use marge. An’ none of yer four teaspoons of sugar in yer tea anymore neither. Twelve ounces! I use more than that when I bake one cake.’
George snorted; he had a sweet tooth and was already finding it difficult to adjust, but then he supposed they were still going to be a lot better off than most folks, plus they’d been through it all before – and not that long ago.
‘Sunday had a letter off Livvy yesterday,’ Cissie went on. ‘Poor lass says the huts they’re havin’ to sleep in are freezin’ but she’s almost finished her trainin’ now so hopefully wherever they transfer her will have a bit better accommodation.’
At that moment Livvy was sitting beneath her blanket in a hut with four other girls shivering like a jelly.
‘It’s so cold,’ Nell Wiseman, one of the girls, complained. Nell was from Earlsdon in Coventry and was a sturdily built girl with straight, mousy hair and a spattering of freckles across her nose. Of the four other girls she had started training with, Nell was Livvy’s closest friend. With Nell so tall and plump and Livvy so petite and delicate they looked an unlikely duo but nonetheless they had hit it off as soon as they’d met.
‘I would have thought you’d be used to it by now,’ Livvy responded.
Amanda in the next bed snorted. ‘How is one ever expected to get used to living in such appalling conditions,’ she complained as her straight, white teeth chattered like castanets. Unlike Nell, who came from a very working-class background, Amanda, who was the only child of wealthy parents, had been brought up in Bristol and had had the best education that money could buy. Her father owned a string of restaurants – a fact she never tired of telling them. In the next bed was Susan, a farmer’s daughter from Yorkshire. She was a sweet-natured girl with flame-red hair who was so homesick that she cried herself to sleep every night. And finally, in the very end bed nearest the draughty door, unfortunately for her, was Pauline. She hailed from London where she had been brought up in an orphanage. There had been six of them when they started but Pat had injured her ankle during the first week of physical training so that had been the end of her WAAF career.
Now Susan extricated her arm from the blanket and glanced at her wristwatch. ‘The NAAFI should be open any time now for some cocoa and supper,’ she commented as Livvy rose to throw some more wood onto the stove that stood in the middle of the room. It was a temperamental thing, often throwing out more smoke than heat.
‘Ouch!’ Livvy cried as she opened the door and it spat at her. ‘I swear this ruddy thing waits for me to do that!’ She hastily threw the log she was holding in and slammed the door shut, causing smoke to billow into the hut and make them all cough.
Amanda quickly took out her compact and applied lipstick and powder to her nose, then fluffing her hair up she asked, ‘So who’s coming then?’
As they had all discovered, Amanda hated being seen without her make-up, whereas the rest of them were usually bundled up in layers of clothing just intent on keeping as warm as they could with no thought to how they looked.
They all rose and when Nell opened the door a gust of snow blew in at them.
‘Ugh! Bloody weather,’ Susan grumbled as they stepped out into the raging blizzard. ‘Perhaps we should have put the kettle on the stove and made our own drinks tonight!’
‘Ah, but some of those handsome RAF chaps could be in,’ Amanda pointed out.
The RAF base was not far from theirs and when the pilots weren’t flying they often used the NAAFI for a meal.
Susan and Livvy exchanged an amused glance, then, heads bent, they picked their way through the deepening snow and just for a moment Livvy thought of the warm, cosy little kitchen back at the lodge.
In the very kitchen that Livvy was thinking of, Sunday was just opening the door to John, who had popped in to check that all was well. Their relationship had undergone a subtle change since he had made the unexpected proposal. For a time, they had lost their easy relationship and she had felt slightly embarrassed when in his company and had stopped visiting Treetops as frequently as she had previously. But since the departure of Giles and Livvy they were becoming closer again, finding comfort in each other’s company.
‘How are you all?’ he asked as Sunday quickly closed the door behind him and he stamped the snow from his boots. Already his coat was beginning to steam in the warm atmosphere, and she smiled as she ushered him to the fireside chair and hurried off to set the kettle on the range.
‘We’re fine. Kathy is upstairs getting the twins to sleep.’ Without asking she spooned tea leaves into the pot from the caddy and lifted down two cups from the shelf. She knew exactly how John liked his tea. ‘Any news from Giles?’
He shook his head as he held his hands out to the leaping flames. ‘Not yet, but Cissie mentioned today that you’d had a letter from Livvy.’
‘Yes, yesterday.’ She lifted it down from behind the clock on the mantelshelf and handed it to him to read.
He smiled as his eyes scanned the page. ‘It sounds like she’s rather missing her home comforts.’
Sunday nodded as she poured the boiling water into the pot.
‘Which brings me around to what I was going to suggest …’
Time to Say Goodbye Page 17
