Gunner Girls and Fighter Boys Read online

  Yet nothing about her new life could dampen her spirits. Whatever boredom she experienced during the daytime was more than made up for in the drama-filled nights, as she went about from bomb site to shelter, dodging incendiaries and skirting blazes. Between the factory in the day and the canteen van at night, she felt that her life was fuller than it had ever been. She loved the camaraderie of the girls she worked with during the day. They would bring in their stories on Monday morning about dances and the chaps they’d met. Even the married women, with their men away in the forces, seemed to be joining in the free-for-all. It felt as if the restraints of pre-war days had been loosened, that with death always at their shoulder the priority had become living life to the full. But she had no time or interest in straying. In her secret heart of hearts, she was glad to be solitary.

  *

  It was Saturday afternoon in late spring, a half-day at the factory, and she was making the weekly journey to Brixton to visit George. With buses frequently cancelled and roads often blocked by debris or closed because of unexploded bombs, it was a laborious trek, sometimes lasting two hours, all for an hour’s visit. It was a duty she was determined to keep up: whatever she was learning about herself in his absence, George was still her husband and she had promised to stick by him.

  She hated the sight of the ugly brick slab of a building, with its rows of identical barred windows. The worst part for her was the feeling of claustrophobia as she walked under the arched entrance, though whether this came from entering a prison, or from the prospect of seeing George, she couldn’t tell.

  As usual, he was sitting behind the table in the visiting room. He was thinner, his pale face touched with high colour on his cheeks, his eyes bright, eager as always to see her.

  ‘Hello, princess! Have you missed me?’

  ‘Of course I’ve missed you! How’ve you been, love?’

  ‘Oh, you know, can’t grumble. Grub’s not getting any better, but the blokes in me cell are decent enough.’ He leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘Matter of fact we’re pulling a fast one, and you can help me with it. Got a screw in me pocket, gets me in whatever I like. But it’s fags we need.’ He was growing breathless.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re not smoking them yourself – your breathing don’t seem any better!’

  ‘What yer talking about, fags do me good, clears me chest. Anyway, that’s not the point. Can you get your hands on any, from that WVS van of yours?’

  She looked at him askance. ‘What do you mean? You want me to nick some for you?’

  ‘They get boxes and boxes delivered to their depots. They’re not gonna notice the odd one here and there.’

  Peggy was silent, genuinely shocked. She knew that George had purposefully avoided involving her directly in his thieving. She wasn’t an innocent; after all she’d lived on the proceeds. But he’d always seemed to want to keep her ‘clean’, maintaining the illusion that she was a cut above all his dodgy dealings.

  She shook her head. ‘No, George, I’m sorry but I’m not doing that! Half our stuff’s donated, by people worse off than us sometimes, and I’m not nicking nothing from the WVS.’

  It was only when she registered George’s look of surprise that she realized she’d just said ‘no’ to him.

  ‘Well, I never wanted you volunteering for them anyway!’ He took in a wheezing breath. ‘Least you could do is make it a bit easier for me in here.’

  His high colour intensified as he took a few short, angry gulps of air. ‘You was glad enough of all the bent money I made, though, wasn’t you?’

  Peggy scraped her chair back and a look of alarm crossed George’s face.

  ‘You’re not going yet, are you?’

  ‘No, but I will if you keep on about it, George.’

  ‘Sorry, princess, but it’s not easy in here. You don’t know what it’s like,’ he said morosely, ‘when you’ve been used to coming and going as you please, and then someone’s on your back day and night, telling you what you can and can’t do.’

  Peggy wanted to tell him that she understood perfectly. But instead, she sat down again and asked him about his visit to the infirmary, where they’d told him there was little they could do to help his breathing. Conversation was always hard work on these visits, and like a dog with a bone, he returned to his usual complaint.

  ‘I’m not keen on you joining the WVS, but it sticks right in my throat, you back at that factory. I never wanted a wife of mine working in a shithole like that.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, George, give it a rest,’ she said, her face flushed with uncharacteristic anger. The warden looked their way and she lowered her voice. ‘It’s not so bad as some places, and you need to get your head out of your arse! There’s no money in the house and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Ronnie Riley, nor any of your other so-called friends. It’s only my wages paying the rent, so if you want a home to come back to, then you’ll just have to get used to it!’

  George banged his fist on the table and she flinched away in fear.

  Peggy had always been grateful he’d never been physically violent towards her, but his outburst made her realize there were other ways to be a bully, and she remembered all those times he’d sapped her confidence, controlling every choice, from her clothes to the food she ordered in a café, so that now she hardly knew what sort of person she could have been if she’d never married him.

  She stood up, hoping that her trembling legs wouldn’t betray her.

  George ducked his head. ‘Sorry, Peg. Don’t go yet.’

  ‘I’ve got to, I’m on the van tonight,’ she said, turning to leave without her customary kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Don’t go like that, Peg!’

  But she didn’t look back. Was it that she had changed, or did her bravado spring only from knowing that he was locked up? She didn’t care. All she knew was that she had defied George in a way that would once have seemed unthinkable.

  In fact, she’d been thinking of asking for an evening off from the canteen round, but the van was beginning to feel more like home than the flat and so, as soon as she got home that evening, she changed into her uniform and reported in.

  But it was a tough night. The German air force seemed to be throwing every last bomb and incendiary at them. The papers had been full of the unbreakable spirit of Londoners, and how after nearly eight months of bombardment Hitler was getting desperate to break their morale. On this particular night it seemed to be raining fire, as they drove to Butler’s Wharf. Babs put her foot down, speeding through a gauntlet of flame which leaped from warehouses, the contents of which were spreading into a molten river across the road. It was probably from the sugar store, as the smell wafting up from the amber lava flow was just like toffee apples.

  ‘Don’t want that stuff sticking to our tyres!’ Babs said, as she swerved suddenly to avoid a lake of toffee.

  Peggy hung on tight, glancing back into the van’s interior, where a couple of bun trays had toppled over. ‘Steady on, Babs, or we’ll have nothing left to give ’em by the time we get there!’

  ‘Oh, those boys’ll be filthy by now, they’re not going to worry about a bit of dust on their buns!’

  They’d been told about a crew of Tommies, seconded to rescue work down by the river, who’d been clearing debris without a break for almost twenty-four hours. Without street lamps and only the merest slits for headlights, they relied upon the incendiary fires to light their way.

  ‘There they are!’ Peggy had spotted them, at the remains of a warehouse, a chain of tired-looking men, passing bricks and lumps of rubble from hand to hand across the ruin.

  They pulled up and Peggy ran out to lower the counter. Within minutes they were surrounded by dusty, parched soldiers and the work of supplying endless cups of tea began. She and Babs had a well-oiled routine going. The cups and saucers, all pre-washed at the previous stop, were laid out by Babs, while Peggy filled the cups from the urn, then she served the men tea and buns, while Babs took orders for
cigarettes, razor blades and even stamps. The men were haggard but cheerful, every crease in their faces accentuated by a thick coating of mortar dust.

  In one face, a pair of blue eyes of startling brightness caught her attention. He was at the end of the queue, and she took his order, noticing the dented helmet he wore at a jaunty angle.

  He must have followed the direction of her gaze, for after taking a long gulp of tea, he rapped the helmet and said, ‘Took a direct hit!’ With the cup still in one hand, he spread his arms wide. ‘Rock as big as this. Good job I had the tin hat on, or that would’ve been the end of my war!’ He looked at her, with a bold amused look as he sipped at the tea, and for some reason, perhaps because the night was so dark, or his face so white with dust, his eyes seemed lit from within, like clear blue skies on a summer day.

  She realized that she hadn’t said a word and now she smiled foolishly. ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘Well, I’m alive.’ He gave a rather sad, slow smile. ‘And the things I’ve seen… well, that counts as lucky these days.’

  She would have liked to delay him, to carry on talking to him, for the bold look and the sad smile had acted like two tiny hooks and as she leaned forward to take the cup from him, his fingers brushed hers. Some impulse made her want to take his hand. But before she could, Babs called back from the driver’s seat.

  ‘Time to shut up shop, Peggy.’

  ‘Goo’night, Peggy.’ The soldier smiled again and she noticed perfectly arched eyebrows framing those bright eyes, the corners of which crinkled beneath the dust coating his face. The long smooth jaw, was shadowed by stubble and weariness. ‘My name’s Harry. Will you be coming this way tomorrow?’

  Peggy nodded.

  ‘I’ll be here too, clearing the site.’

  ‘Peggy! Get that counter up. I want to get home to my bed!’ Bab’s roared from the front.

  Harry pulled a face. ‘Sergeant Major’s calling. Here, let me help.’

  He lifted the counter for Peggy, who, before she locked it into position, put her hand through the gap and waved.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Harry!’

  She felt her hand being taken, and the fingertips kissed by an invisible Harry. Without warning, Peggy felt a dangerous sweetness flood her and she was glad of the van’s dark interior to hide the flush she knew was rising to her face. Within a heartbeat she had given a name to her feeling and realized that it was neither safe nor comfortable, let alone resistible. She pulled in her hand, locked up the counter and slipped into the cab.

  ‘Drive, Babs,’ she said. ‘Drive.’

  *

  Peggy saw Harry every night for a week, but she learned only the briefest details of his life. Originally from Camberwell, he’d moved to Bermondsey before the war and been called up in 1939. All the way through the canteen round she found herself thinking of nothing else but the stop down by Butler’s Wharf. She anticipated, almost painfully, the brief sensation of his fingers brushing hers as she handed him the cup of tea. She knew it was deliberate, and for the few moments that their hands touched, Harry held her gaze with those bright eyes. The effect of these small encounters was so powerful she was ashamed of herself. She’d walked out with a few boys before marrying George, but had never felt this demanding draw to a man. She felt almost as virginal as her poor sister May, whom she’d teased for her inexperience. If first love was foreign territory to May, then this passion Peggy felt was like an undiscovered continent. And she had no one to help her navigate this foreign, forbidden land.

  On the fifth night Harry told her his squad would be moving on to another bombed area the next night. They were being placed wherever they were needed, while waiting for a regular posting, which could be anywhere, he said, even overseas. He wondered if she would meet him for a drink somewhere, before they left. And if it hadn’t been for an encounter with Ronnie Riley earlier that day, she was pretty sure, in spite of her attraction to Harry, she would have said ‘no’.

  But that afternoon Ronnie had been waiting for her when she’d arrived home from work. As she was walking towards the block entrance, she heard a loud whistle and then a gravelly voice called down to her from the landing. ‘Oi, does your old man know you’re out?’

  She looked up sharply to her flat on the first floor, annoyed to see Ronnie looking down at her, leaning his beefy arms on the landing railing. She dashed up the stairs, planning to get rid of him. She wasn’t going to waste her precious hour before going out on the canteen making small talk with one of George’s cronies.

  ‘Hello, love, sorry I ain’t been before,’ he said, as she put the key in the door and walked into the passage. She turned towards him, holding the door open, but not asking him in.

  ‘That’s all right, Ronnie, but I’m in a bit of a rush. Got to have my tea and get ready for WVS duty.’

  ‘George said you was keeping yourself busy. Lonely, he reckons you are.’ He grinned, squeezing his camel-coated bulk past her into the passage.

  ‘Anyway, he asked me to make sure you was all right. I’ll just stop for a quick cuppa.’

  She sighed. It was no good being nasty to Ronnie. He was only the messenger.

  She offered him some of the cold meat and pickle which was all she had time for and he tucked in, finishing the last of her bread as well.

  ‘Anyway, love, he don’t want you going short. Asked me to give you this.’ Ronnie took a large bite out of the bread and pushed a roll of notes across the kitchen table.

  ‘No! I can’t take that, Ronnie.’

  ‘Go on! Take it.’ His mouth was full of bread. ‘Now don’t offend me.’

  She felt cornered and as she’d often done since marrying George, she took the money, and tried not to imagine how it had been come by.

  ‘George’ll make sure you get it back…’ she said weakly.

  Ronnie waved his hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. He’s me mate. I promised I’d keep an eye on you, and I will.’

  He sat back, giving her an appraising look. ‘You’re a good-looking woman, even in that clobber.’

  She hadn’t yet changed out of the red siren suit which she found more practical when climbing ladders in the powder room, and she was still wearing the dark blue polka-dot scarf, which she tied turban-style to protect her hair from the powder.

  ‘I expect you’ve got a few fellers sniffing around?’

  Peggy bristled, realizing that her material needs were not all that he was checking up on. George had sent him to be her jailer. She got up abruptly.

  ‘I’m doing ten-hour days at Atkinson’s and out most nights on the van. Do you think I’ve got time to look at fellers?’ she said frostily and Ronnie put up his hand, aware that he’d gone too far.

  ‘Sorry, Peg, didn’t mean nothing by it. It’s just George. He’s a bit windy stuck in there with you out here on yer own. But I told him not to worry. You’re a different class, Peg. Not like these old brasses drop their knickers for anyone in uniform. Enough said.’

  He shrugged on the camel overcoat that he’d draped over the kitchen chair. She waited till he’d gone before she stuffed the roll of money into a drawer, wishing it was as easy to wipe away the notion that, even from prison, George had her tethered. She changed quickly into her WVS uniform and didn’t feel she could breathe properly until she and Babs had loaded up the van and were on their way.

  So, fuelled by anger at George’s mistrust and defiance at Ronnie Riley’s surveillance, she agreed to meet Harry for a drink the next evening after work. But she was determined not to let her anger and rebelliousness take her anywhere she would regret going. It would just be a drink, a goodbye drink – passion would be a fire she viewed from a distance. She had no intention of getting burned.

  10

  The Broken Bridge

  Spring 1941

  It had taken them two and a half days to get to Pontefract and the town did not greet them with a smiling face. During all the long delays at stations and interminable stops at halts, they’d gleaned what info
rmation they could about the town they were heading for. May had heard of Pontefract cakes, the liquorice lozenges the town was famous for, and Pat, who seemed familiar with the place, declared that Pontefract meant ‘broken bridge’, which May thought was ominous. It certainly felt as if every bridge between here and her old life was tumbling down. The further north she went, the more she realized how little she knew of her own country, the one they were all meant to be fighting for. It was an alien landscape. The too wide, unbroken skies made May feel dizzy, used as she was to Bermondsey’s crowded skyline. When the train, with an almost disapproving snort of steam, finally chugged into Pontefract, May was astonished at how different the place looked from any other she’d ever been. It sat bleakly in the folded brown and grey countryside. Built of unfamiliar, soot-blackened stone, the place felt hard and cold compared to the warmth of London’s brick.

  ‘Thank God we’re not stopping long,’ she remarked to Ruby as they stepped off the train into a mizzling rain, which immediately soaked into her woollen coat. She saw a sergeant approaching them. Bee had had the presence of mind to telephone the barracks from the hospital, so at least they were expected. The sergeant’s face was fixed, but May could see from his eyes that he wanted to laugh. They must look an absolute state.

  ‘Ah, the reinforcements have arrived! Come on, ladies,’ he said with exaggerated politeness, ‘your chariot awaits!’ And he beckoned them onward.

  They were a raggle-taggle band of already wounded soldiers that clambered up on to the back of the covered army lorry. May with her bandaged hand, Ruby with an impressive head bandage and Bee with her immaculate gabardine ripped all the way up the back. The only apparently unscathed one of May’s travelling companions was loud Pat. As they were jolted along slick, grey streets to the barracks, May held on tight, trying to keep her bruised ribs away from the side board. She hadn’t known what to expect, but the fort-like barracks, when it came into view, reminded her of something Jack had played with as a boy, with its square turrets and window slits. She peered through the open end of the lorry at a parade ground which seemed to go on forever. The hoarse commands of a drill sergeant were confusing a group of uniformed women, as they attempted a quick march across the square.