Soldier Girl (10 page)

‘Are we going to stand here all morning, ’til I get an answer?’

Molly could hear some impatient mutterings behind her. ‘For goodness’
sake
. . .’ and ‘Why doesn’t she just grow up? Wasting everybody’s time . . .’

Unpopular as ever, Molly kept quiet and the sergeant gave up. But afterwards, some of the others gave her snooty looks. Then she ran into Ruth, soon after, in the ablutions hut. Ruth stared stonily at her, her protruding teeth making her look rabbity, a blush seeping through her cheeks.
What the hell’s she got to go all red about?
Molly wondered. ‘Summat the matter?’ she asked, hand on hips.

‘Well if you must know,’ Ruth spluttered in her strangulated voice, ‘I really think it’s a bit thick of you to keep causing trouble during drill. No one finds it amusing, you know. It’s really rather childish of you.’ Her face was ablaze. Ruth was clearly not used to having it out with people.

‘D’you think I give a monkeys what you f***ing well think?’ Molly sneered. Somehow when she was talking to these posh girls, more bad language seemed to crash out from between her lips than at any other time. And Ruth was just
odd.
‘Some of us can ’ave a bit of a laugh, even if you can’t, yer po-faced cow!’

Ruth made a distasteful face and turned away. ‘It’s no good talking to you, I can see.’

‘Why – ain’t I good enough for yer then?’

Ruth turned again, as if stung by this remark. For a moment she seemed at a loss, her basic politeness clashing with her anger. ‘It’s not that . . . it’s just . . . why must you be so
coarse
all the time?’

‘Maybe that’s just the way I am,’ Molly snapped sulkily.

‘Well just . . .’ Ruth shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Some of us don’t like it, that’s all.’

‘Well maybe “some of us” will just have to lump it.’

Molly stood watching as Ruth walked out of the ablutions hut. She’d had the last word, and that was the way she liked it. She stuck her tongue out at Ruth’s back. In the quiet, amid dripping taps, she found herself longing for a drink, a lot of drink, to blot it all out.

There were dental examinations, kit inspections – Molly fared very well with this, and received surprised praise from the Gorgon – and gruesome lectures about venereal disease, through which, surprisingly, the wilting Honor – who had quickly become known as ‘Beaky’ – sat with unruffled calm, while Lena turned green and had to put her head between her knees.

That week, the only time they were to be allowed out was on the Sunday for church parade. Molly wasn’t bothered by this. The camp contained more male servicemen than women, so as far as she was concerned there was plenty of scope for excitement. She knew Billy was interested, for a start – they just needed to find a way to meet up.

In the meantime she quickly learned more about the other girls in Hut J, either through conversations she had with her friends, or overheard among others. Win, as expected, had spent seven years in a girls’ boarding school and had been about to embark on her teacher training when she joined up. Ruth had a place to read natural sciences at Cambridge which she planned to take up once the war was over. Of Honor they still knew very little except that she came from a wealthy farming family near Banbury. Lena was the third in a family of six children.

‘Our Cissie – that’s my big sister – ’as been wed for two years now. Our mom wanted me to stop home and look after all the others but I down’t like all that – I wanted a job. I mean it’s not that I’m not fond of the little bleeders but I’m not their mom. ’Er was always making me stop home from school; course we daint want our Paul, that’s me elder brother, stopping home, him being the boy. And the way our dad was . . .’ She didn’t say more, but an expression of loathing passed over her face. ‘Then our Paul went off into the Merchant Navy, I couldn’t believe it when ’e said ’e was going. I never thought ’e’d go and leave me . . .’ She sounded almost tearful saying this. ‘And I thought, well I ain’t stopping ’ere, not with ’im gone. Soon as I could I went off and got a job in a big house out at Darlaston – you know, in service. I s’pose I’d’ve done better in a factory. The money’s better, ’specially now. But they were all right, it wasn’t a bad place to work, but one day I’d just had enough skivvying – I gave in my notice and signed up with the army. I don’t like stopping anywhere too long, me. And I worry about our Paul. I wish ’e ’adn’t gone and left . . .’

Molly was disappointed in Lena. She had thought, being fellow Midlanders, that they’d be friends, but Lena was a cheerless person who spent an awful lot of time mooning over her brother. It was Cath who Molly found she spent more and more time with, and they laughed a lot together. Cath was the seventh of nine children from a farm near Waterford.

‘Nothing was ever the same after Mammy died,’ she told Molly sadly one evening, perched on the edge of Molly’s bed. ‘She took sick when I was fifteen. It all happened so fast, and then she was gone.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ve only brothers – all the other eight – and of course the eldest ones had the farm. The rest of us, well . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Daddy was a lost soul without Mammy. She was the heart of the house and the farm. It was all so sad, everything about the farm just felt so deserted and haunted. Even the horses missed her – they used to call out for her at first! I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could . . .’

Head on one side, she gave a wistful smile through her tears. ‘I don’t know as I could ever face going back there.’

Molly listened, astonished. How lucky some people were, having mothers who they were so fond of, who they could love and miss!

‘I hope if I ever have children I can be like her,’ Cath said in a soft voice. She stared ahead of her for a moment. ‘The day they buried her – it was May time, just gorgeous the day before, and the apple blossom was out, just perfect. I picked an armful of blossom – oh, it was so lovely! I wanted to put it on her grave. And the next morning, when we went up to the church, which is on the side of the hill, it came on to rain. God, it was Irish rain all right, came across the side of the hill in sheets, and I can remember standing inside the wall of the church, by the big crucifix, holding my flowers and trying to keep them from spoiling. But it was hopeless – the rain lashed them all to pieces . . .’ She shook her head, the tears running down her cheeks. ‘D’you know, since that day I’ve never believed in God or Jesus or anything else about it. We went in to Mass and I knew the priest would have told me to offer it up and everything. And I just knelt there looking at Mammy’s little coffin up at the front there, with my crushed flowers on it, with Jesus looking down, and I thought, God, if you’re even up there, you’re a bastard and I hate you for letting Mammy die. I don’t want anything else to do with you. I’ve never been back to Mass since. Daddy couldn’t make me – he never went himself. Now and then he’d just stand out with the other men. It was Mammy who went.’

She wiped her eyes. ‘So here I am.’

Molly was really touched. ‘That sounds terrible,’ she said, sincerely.

‘I’m not even close to my brothers really. Except my youngest brother, Donal – I write him now and then. But the others . . . some of them were so much older. You’d think growing up in the same house you’d have more in common, wouldn’t you?’

‘Oh – I don’t know,’ Molly said.

‘Are you close to your brothers and sisters, Molly?’

‘No – I’ve only really got one brother – the other went off years back. No – I wouldn’t say we’re close – not at all.’ How much could she say? she wondered. There wasn’t much she wanted to say about her family. ‘I wasn’t close to any of ’em. That’s why I was keen to get away.’

The two girls smiled fondly at each other. The smile from Cath’s pretty face warmed Molly’s heart more than she could have ever said.

Two beds away, both with their backs to them, sat Win and Honor. Win, in tones of eternal patience, was trying to teach Honor how to darn her stockings.

‘What’s up with the Beak?’ Cath whispered. ‘She’s a bit of a sad case ain’t she?’ Honor cried herself to sleep every night. Win had come over a couple of times to try and comfort her, but was soon driven back to her own bed by the cold. Lena had had the odd weep as well, and said she was missing her brother. But so far, neither Molly nor Cath had shed a tear. However tough the army was, in many ways it was better than life at home.

‘She’s not bad really,’ Molly said. She’d told them about Honor coining the nickname ‘the Gorgon’ for Corporal Morrison and it had gone round the whole unit. Everyone called her that now.

They watched Honor. Molly thought she had never met anyone so strange, so alien and different from herself.

‘That’s it,’ Win was saying. ‘It’s really quite easy. Just weave the needle back and forth like that – then the other way and you’ll have covered the hole – see?’

‘Oh, thank you so much!’ Honor intoned in her nasal voice. ‘I do feel so very hopeless – we’ve always had servants to do everything. I never even went away to school like you.’

‘Well you pick up a fair bit there, inevitably,’ Win said, getting to her feet. ‘Can you manage now, d’you think?’

‘Oh yes, I think so. Thank you!’

As she moved away, Win half turned and saw Molly and Cath watching her. Being a naturally friendly girl, she seemed about to smile, but then, as if registering who they were, she just nodded and walked away. Cath grinned. ‘That was a bit of a straight look. I don’t think she knows what to make of us.’

‘I don’t s’pose she does,’ Molly said. She imitated the cut-glass tones of some of the other girls further along the hut. ‘I s’pose she’s never met rough types like us before.’ They saw Win glance back at her, frowning.

There was a growing atmosphere of tension in the hut, which at the moment ran along class lines. Molly felt as if the likes of Win and Ruth looked down on herself and some of the others for being rude and childish – and the more it went on, the more rebellious and childish she felt. But she told herself she didn’t care. She’d made a friend, and that was the most wonderful feeling of all.

The first week of training was already almost over, and Molly and Cath were firm friends. Lena kept to herself a lot in the evenings, writing letters to Paul, or lying hunched miserably on her bed, just not seeming to want to be sociable.

‘She seems ever so caught up with that brother of hers,’ Molly said, puzzled, as she and Cath walked to the NAAFI for a cup of tea one afternoon. ‘She’s a bit of a wet rag really.’

‘I know – I mean, it must be a worry to her,’ Cath said, ‘but there are limits. There’s nothing she can do. You’ve got to get on with your life.’

Molly was about to remark that she wouldn’t lose any sleep over her own brother, when a cheerful voice called out, ‘Hello there, stranger!’

‘Billy! ’Bout time!’ Now life might start to get a bit more interesting around here! ‘Where the hell’ve you been? I’ve been looking out for you all over the place!’ Apart from that time during drill, she hadn’t seen him at all since they arrived.

‘Well – I get about!’ Billy grinned. He had a pink complexion and a face that looked as if it had taken a few punches. He nodded towards the NAAFI. ‘Coming in for a cuppa?’ The two women followed him in.

‘This is Cath, my mate,’ Molly said as they queued up at the counter. Billy and Cath nodded at each other.

‘All right, Cath – how’re you getting on?’

Molly was tingling with life suddenly. They bought their cups of tea and sat at one of the tables.

‘Bet you got it in the neck for calling out to me the other morning,’ Billy said, seeming amused. ‘You’re a case, you are.’

‘Ah well,’ Molly shrugged, offhand. ‘It was worth it to see you, Billy boy.’ It felt as if they’d known each other a long time, just because each was a familiar face. ‘What was you up to with that big spade then?’

‘Oh – I’m one of the coke shovellers,’ he laughed. ‘Us blokes have to do the heavy work around here. How d’you think you get any warm water first thing of a morning?’

‘I thought I heard a racket first thing,’ Cath said.

‘Yeah, well that’ll be us stoking up.’

Molly took a sip of her strong, sweet tea. ‘Ah – I needed that.’ She looked deep into Billy’s eyes. That always worked well. She knew how to hook a man. ‘It’s ever so nice to see yer.’

They talked about camp life for a bit, and when Cath had finished her tea, she tactfully got up and left them to it. ‘See you later, Molly!’

Soon after she’d gone, Billy asked casually, ‘D’yer want to come out one night, Molly?’

‘Yeah – you’re on!’

‘You’re not allowed out of camp this week – first week and that.’

‘Oh, I don’t know as I’d let that stop me!’ Molly laughed, leaning closer to Billy. ‘D’you know of a good place to go? It’d just be nice to see yer. You know – spend a bit of time together, like.’ She could feel herself working on him, as if she was programmed to do it.

‘You’re all right you are, Molly,’ Billy laughed. ‘What about tonight? We could come in here if yer want . . .’

Molly leaned even closer. ‘What about we sneak out – just you and me? I’m sick of being stuck in ’ere.’

Billy sniggered. ‘Like that is it? But what if we get caught . . . ? We’ll get a roasting.’

‘We won’t. We’ll work it out somehow.’

Molly told herself she couldn’t care less about army authority – so what if she got caught for sneaking out? What was the worst they could do? This was not the whole truth though. Over her days so far working under Phoebe Morrison, the woman had begun to get under her skin. She found in herself a childlike desire to please her, to try and win her praise. When it came to kit inspections, she had been outstandingly successful. She found wearing uniform a relief – she didn’t stand out because of her old make-do clothes, and she kept herself as smart and clean as possible. When Phoebe Morrison came round to inspect their hut one morning and said, obviously surprised, ‘Very good, Fox, keep it up,’ the glow of those words lasted all day, as well as the startled looks on Win and Ruth’s faces. When she put her mind to it and didn’t fool around, she was good at drill. And she thrived on praise, starting to look out for ways she could please Corporal Morrison especially.