Molly's War (20 page)

‘Don’t talk so daft,’ said Molly. Even if he was, she thought as she started work, she’d told him last night she was engaged, hadn’t she? She dismissed him from her thoughts, humming along with the Andrews Sisters on the
wireless
. Today was a good day, she told herself. Today there would be a letter from Jackson sitting on the mantelpiece when she got home. It was lovely, getting a letter from him, almost as good as actually seeing him. Almost but not quite.

Chapter Eighteen

REFUGEES STREAMED ALONG
the country road. Jackson watched one grandmother with a baby in her arms, the mother pushing a baby carriage filled with clothes and household goods wrapped up in bedding and dragging a toddler with the other hand.

‘Hell’s bells, I wish they would get off the road,’ said Harry feelingly. ‘It’s bad enough trying to get the lads moved along without fighting your way through this lot.’

Next minute the whole column were fleeing for the ditch at the side as a twin-engined ME110 German fighter plane swooped out of nowhere and began strafing them. Harry grabbed the old woman and screaming baby and dived with her for safety, Jackson close behind with the mother and little boy. They huddled together in the scant cover and after what seemed an age and another couple of runs by the plane, the pilot tired, or perhaps his fuel was running low, and turned to go back where he came from. The sound of the engine died away in the distance. It was very quiet except for a baby crying and someone moaning a few yards away.

‘Come on, we can’t help them.’ Before the refugees could gather themselves together Jackson was back on the road, shouting for the men of his patrol. ‘Fall in! Come on, lads, we have to make the river by nightfall.’

They had been seconded to a French Army unit which was defending a small hamlet on the River Dyle. The roads were choked with refugees. The only way through was on foot. Why they were going to aid the French neither Jackson nor Harry knew, but they had had their orders and were determined to carry them out. Even more determined now even though they had to pass by a group of crying children clustered round a woman lying on the ground, wounded if not dead. Surely others among the refugees would help?

Setting off at a quick march the soldiers of the DLI moved down the road, at times detouring into the fields beside it to overtake a group of refugees. They were silent mostly, grim-faced after what they had just witnessed.

‘I keep thinking, Jackson,’ Harry said after the first mile, ‘if that lot should get to England it could be our Molly on the run with your parents. My God! They could be being strafed by …’

‘Neither Hitler nor the Luftwaffe nor his bloody army is going to get to England,’ snapped Jackson roughly. ‘I don’t want to hear that sort of talk.’

Harry glanced quickly at his set face and away again. He was right, it couldn’t happen. It didn’t bear thinking about.

They reached the French position by seven o’clock. It was a warm May evening, the sun casting long shadows on the fields surrounding the cluster of houses. The French soldiers welcomed them quietly, gave them bread and slices of Belgian sausage, spicy, with lumps of fat in it, and completely alien to the lads from Durham.

‘I’ll be up half the night with this lot,’ one of them grumbled though he went on ploughing his way through it, washing it down with rough red wine. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a bit of meat pudding and a glass of Newcastle Brown!’

‘Get away, man,’ said Harry. ‘This is nothing to what we had to eat in India. The food there was hot enough to take the roof off your mouth. Why –’

What he had been going to say none of them discovered because at that precise moment three German dive-bombers, the noise of their engines muffled at first by the hill which they came over, zoomed down on the hamlet and strafed everything in sight. There was only the one run and after it Jackson picked himself up from under the bush where he had dived and looked around to assess the damage.

A few yards away a French ack-ack gun had opened up from its cover behind a clump of bushes. Now the gun barrel was lifted to the sky, waiting for the return run which never came.

‘Harry!’

Jackson ran to his friend who sat slumped against the
trunk
of a tree, a lump of French bread still in his hand, his mouth hanging open slackly. Even as Jackson got to him, a dark red stain showed through the rough khaki of his battledress, spreading, turning almost black, beginning to drip on to the bare earth under the tree.

‘Harry!’ Jackson cried again. He was rifling through his kit, searching for a field dressing. He found one at last and the man who had been grumbling about the food barely a minute before was helping him get the battledress open.

‘He’s not dead, Sergeant,’ the soldier said. ‘Look, he’s breathing.’

Jackson had control of himself now. He found the place, the entry wound deceptively small considering the amount of blood Harry had lost already. But it didn’t look as though it was anywhere vital. He managed to put on the dressing, binding it tightly, and the flow of blood slowed.

‘What the hell was that?’

Relief flooded Jackson as he looked up quickly to see that Harry’s eyes were open. He was pale but his eyes were focussing properly. He tried to sit up and winced, his hand going to his side.

‘It’s all right, just a nick in your side. You were lucky that time, Harry,’ he said. ‘Help me get him inside, Private, will you?’

‘Aye, Sergeant. That lot will be back, nowt so sure.’

Behind them was a cottage, its windows dark, the owners long gone. Probably they had passed them on the road earlier in the day. They got him inside, Harry walking
at
least though supported on either side by the other two. As soon as he could, Jackson would get him back to a First Aid post. It would have to be a French one, they were too far away from their own lines.

‘I’ll see the French officer, Harry.’ Jackson got to his feet. ‘Get you back to the –’

He broke off at the sound of gunfire, not in the distance but close, too close, coming nearer all the time, on the other side of the hill.

‘Go on. I’ll be all right,’ said Harry. But Jackson and the Private were already at the door, rifles at the ready. The Germans were coming.

The concert party, mostly girls with a sprinkling of men, were rehearsing for the first works concert. Molly and Mona were there. They had rushed their dinner to allow as much time as possible for the rehearsal, though even then half an hour was about the most they had.

‘Now then, lads and lasses.’ Mr Dowson banged his baton on the music stand importantly, calling them to order. There was some giggling and a few remarks made in undertones but most of the concert party turned to listen.

Mr Dowson had surprised them all, turning up for the first rehearsal in response to a leaflet pinned on the notice board asking anyone interested to join the party. Not only could he sing in a fine tenor voice, he had a talent for acting which transformed him. When he was on stage everyone forgot his short stature and podgy figure. His
voice
rang out pure and true, mesmerising all who listened. He could play the piano too with an impressive ability so that straight away he was voted in as leader of the concert party.

Today they were rehearsing ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant-Major’. The girls were going to be dressed up in battledress, the Sergeant-Major would be Mr Dowson, sporting a large false moustache. He strutted up and down the stage as they danced, not exactly like the Tiller Girls as yet but they were getting there.

‘The thing is, it’s hard to sing
and
dance,’ Mona complained. ‘I can’t get me breath, I’m like a stranded trout.’

‘Shouldn’t smoke so much,’ said Molly. But she grinned at Mona. Most of the girls smoked. She herself had tried it once or twice but couldn’t understand what they saw in it. Anyway, it seemed a shame to start when there weren’t enough cigarettes for the men as it was.

‘They’re getting so scarce we’ll all be cutting down,’ Mona said gloomily.

‘Will you two girls at the back there stop gossiping and get on with it?’ enquired Mr Dowson.

‘
Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant-Major
,’ the girls sang, in a line, kicking their legs in unison, arms along each other’s shoulders.

‘Just like that picture that’s on at the Majestic. You know,
Ziegfield Follies of 1938
.’

Molly hadn’t seen it, she didn’t get to the pictures much.
Usually
she was doing jobs for Maggie when she was on the right shift.

The half hour sped by and she was soon back in her little room, filling shells with TNT from the hopper once again. Her movements were automatic by now but she had to concentrate, it was too dangerous not to. Nevertheless thoughts of Jackson sneaked into her mind. She wondered where he was, what he was doing, had he written to her?

There was a letter when she got back to Eden Hope. As always her eyes went straight to the mantelpiece and there it was. And Maggie and Frank were both smiling, they too had had a precious letter.

‘He doesn’t say much, lass, not about where he is. But according to the wireless, they’re fighting in Belgium. I tell you what, our lads’ll soon see the Huns off, you mark my words.’

‘The main thing is, he’s all right. Harry an’ all, he reckons,’ said Maggie.

Molly kept the letter beside her as she ate her tea. She kept looking at it, a warm glow suffusing her whole body. When she had finished she left the washing up and went up to her room. Jackson’s room, it still was really, his things were still about, comforting to her.

‘
My love
…’

Molly was lying on her bed, gas jet turned up high so she could see to read by its flickering light. (The mantle was about done, it had two holes in it and the flame hissed and licked at it. Gas mantles were getting scarce
along
with everything else. The houses had been about to be wired for electricity but the war stopped that.) She kissed the words. She was his love, she thought. ‘
As soon as this campaign is over, I’ll get some leave and we’ll be married
…’

There was no real information. Harry was well, so was he. There might not be a letter for a while because he was going … The rest was blanked out by the censor, the only bit in the letter which was. Jackson was always careful what he wrote.

But at least it was a letter. He had held it in his hands, written the words. It was the only link Molly had had with him for weeks. She closed her eyes and imagined the feel of his lips on hers, him lying beside her.

Oh, well, she’d best go down and see to the washing up. And she’d promised to turn the pantry out for Maggie who had little time to spare now she took Frank out in the wheel chair every day. Up to the pit yard where he could meet the men coming off shift and have a few words with them. Or down to the Miners’ Welfare, where there was a ramp for the chair and the chance of meeting some of his old mates for endless talks of wet seams and cavils and, nowadays, how the war was going.

‘I had a letter from Harry yesterday,’ said Mona. ‘I think he wants us to get wed when he comes home.’

‘Me too.’ Molly smiled at her friend. ‘I mean, I had a letter too.’

‘Hurry up, girls, there’s another rehearsal,’ a voice said behind them and they looked at one another. It was getting difficult for Molly to hold off Mr Dowson. He was always about when she came out of her work room, always next to her in the queue at the canteen somehow.

‘We know, Mr Dowson,’ said Mona, and gave Molly a meaningful grin. ‘He’s here again,’ she whispered loudly.

‘Shh!’ hissed Molly.

‘Call me Gary,’ Mr Dowson said affably, and Mona could hardly control her giggles.

‘Now then, our Mona, stop messing about. Do you want cabbage or not?’

Mona’s mother was behind the counter, her hair done up in a net, a voluminous white overall wrapped round her. Mrs Fletcher was a widow. Mona’s father had died only three months before the war started and his wife had been just under fifty so didn’t receive a widow’s pension.

‘Quite right, Mrs Fletcher,’ said Mr Dowson primly. ‘Go on, girls. As I said, we have to rehearse.’

‘OK, Mam, give us a spoonful,’ said Mona. ‘It looks all right, you cannot have cooked it, eh?’

Her mother made a threatening gesture with her serving spoon and Mona ducked, laughing. The girls took their trays to one of the long tables and settled down to eat fish and chips and cabbage followed by spotted dick and custard.

The days were getting longer. When Molly left the factory and walked along by the perimeter wall to where
the
buses were lined up near the station the sun was still shining; in the trees across the road birds were twittering as they got ready to roost for the night. She felt a surge of optimism. Summer was almost here. Surely it would be a good summer after the cold snows of winter? Was the sun shining on the boys in Belgium, or wherever they were?

Jackson and six of his men were lying just under the brow of the hill above the hamlet, watching the column of approaching Germans. The French Lieutenant was further along the hill, staring at the advancing column, looking as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But Jackson didn’t wait for his orders. As soon as the column was within range he ordered his men to fire. The column slowed, halted for a minute or two, and then came on inexorably.

‘Fall back!’ called the Lieutenant. ‘Fall back!’ he cried in English to Jackson, but Jackson didn’t hear. Rifle fire in his ears drowned out all else. When he looked across at where the Frenchmen had been, they were gone.

‘I think we’re on our own here, Sergeant,’ said the Private who had helped him with Harry earlier in the afternoon.

‘You’re not supposed to think,’ snapped Jackson. ‘Keep firing!’ Suddenly there was a deafening explosion as one of the leading tanks in the column fired at the hill where they were concealed. Three of his men were thrown into
the
air and fell heavily, to be covered in a rain of grass tufts, soil and stones.

‘Bloody hell!’ the Private said. Jackson glanced at him. He was white and shaking with shock. He had dropped his rifle but picked it up quickly and turned back to face the Germans.