Soldier Girl (34 page)

Molly sank back into the chair, her eyes filling with tears. ‘They were so kind to me, Em, both of them. They were like my mom and dad and I wanted to look after ’em – and look what happened. It’s all wrong, all of it . . .’ She broke down and wept for a few moments.

‘I know, Molly,’ Em said, her heart wrung at the thought of all the loss Molly had suffered. ‘But I s’pose he’s better off – you know, going to join her, than being in there on his own.’

‘Yes,’ Molly wiped her face. ‘It’s a mercy in a way. But if it wasn’t for the war, for that bastard Hitler, they wouldn’t have had their house bombed and they’d still be here.’ She looked at Em, shamefaced. ‘D’you know – our mom was born in there.’

‘Where – the workhouse?’

‘On her birth certificate it says ninety-something Dudley Road. Ninety-seven it might have been. They didn’t put “The Workhouse”. Kind of them, I s’pose, not to spell it out. Her mom died having ’er – I don’t know if there were any brothers or sisters. I never heard of any.’

Em wasn’t sure what to say. The workhouse was always seen as a place of shame and desperation.

Molly groaned. ‘Oh, why couldn’t that bloody bomb’ve hit her and Bert instead?’

Em looked shocked for a second, but then both of them were tickled by the sheer badness of what Molly had just said. They burst out laughing, and the sudden sound startled Robbie into screams of alarm.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, little man,’ Em said, rocking him against her shoulder. But the two of them just carried on laughing, tears running down their cheeks. Sometimes it seemed the only thing to do.

Molly stayed that night with the Browns, catching up with Joyce and Violet. Bob Brown greeted her warmly after a surprised look, which Em noticed very clearly. There was a time when Bob would not have wanted to give rough, smelly little Molly Fox any houseroom, and now he looked startled by the strong, capable woman who seemed to be emerging more each time they saw her.

Em enjoyed having Molly there, giggling with her and her sisters round the table after tea, telling them stories.

‘I wish I could join up,’ Violet said. ‘It sounds much better than working in the stupid old factory.’

‘
I
could,’ Joyce said smugly.

‘You’re only just fifteen,’ Em told her.

‘So what? I look older ’un that. They’d have me, wouldn’t they?’

‘That’s not fair,’ Violet said stormily. ‘I want to go in the army!’

‘I could though,’ Joyce said, sounding excited. ‘D’you think I should, Molly?’

Em had a strong pang of anxiety. She dreaded any sort of separation from her family. But she could hardly stop Joyce when she was old enough, could she, if the war was still on then?

‘It’s up to you, love,’ Molly said. ‘You’ll have to make up your own mind. But you’re too young just yet.’

‘
I
look sixteen,’ Violet was saying, though no one was listening, since she was only eleven and hadn’t even started work yet.

Desperate to change the subject, Em said in a low voice to Molly, ‘Are you going to call on your mom this time?’

She saw a disgusted look pass over Molly’s face. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not.’

Molly spent the next months with her battery, moving from gun site to gun site. They went to Norfolk, then to numerous different sites along the south and east coasts. When the church bells, so long silent, rang out on November 15 to celebrate victory at El Alamein, it was the bells of Leigh-on-Sea that she heard pealing across the gun park. Leigh-on-Sea, where Tony had been supposed to go, and here she was, guiding the guns instead.

Life was stable and busy. Molly immersed herself in army life and tried, apart from occasional letters to Em (whose own were mainly full of news of Robbie’s teeth and smiles and sitting up), not to think of anything much else. It was easier to live for the present, not to think about what might happen once the war was over. And as Sergeant Morrison promised, now she had decided to fit in, the army was in many ways a good place to be.

The relationships within the battery were good, and she got on especially well with two girls, Jen, a very sociable girl from Newcastle, and Ann from Leicester, both predictor operators. Every three months they were entitled to ten days’ leave. But even though she needed the break as much as anyone else, Molly did not look forward to it coming round. She wanted to stay in the orderly, purposeful army routine and shut out everything else. The thought of life outside now felt like a blast of icy air entering a warm room. After all, what was there for her at home? As Jen was so far from home, she didn’t always go back there on leave, even though she missed her family, so once she and Molly had a couple of days away on leave together when the battery was in Norfolk. But mostly they just kept working.

Despite the hardships of army life, the sometimes foul, freezing weather, the long hours and petty discipline, Molly had never felt better. Getting up in the morning, she loved putting on the tough, masculine clothes that some of the others complained so much about, and striding around in battledress and boots, feeling strong and powerful. The routines were second nature to her now and she knew her job back to front. She was fit and well fed. Some days she felt she could take on anything. There were plenty of men about, in the battery and on the gun parks, and she had learned to be friends with some of them and no more than that. Most of them seemed to sense that she had shut down and did not want to know about love relationships. She told them her fiancé had been killed, that she was not over him, which was no lie. Gradually she was finding a new way of living, not hopping from one man to another without thought for what she might really want. And keeping out of all that made her feel free.

By the spring of 1943, Molly’s battery had been posted to a gun site outside Reading, one of London’s farthest-flung defences. It was a large site, with each group of four Nissen huts arranged end-on round the ablutions hut – an arrangement known as ‘spiders’. Life was relatively quiet, since the raids were few and far between, but the routines had to go on, the soldiers’ hard-earned skills kept up to date. One of the duties that had to be performed daily concerned the transmitters that were powered by generators which had to be started up; the stand-by team for the first duty shift of the morning had to take down the aerials of the transmitter and receiver, wash and re-grease them, and put them back.

On a freezing March day, Molly was performing this duty with Ann. They had carried out the routine hundreds of times by now, but on this occasion, Ann mentioned that she didn’t feel well. Later that day she developed a burning fever, and was soon gravely ill, and this developed into double pneumonia. She had to be rushed to hospital.

‘I don’t think she’ll be coming back in a hurry,’ their corporal said. ‘We’re going to have to move in a replacement.’

A few days later, when the weather had cleared and it was frosty and bright, Molly and Jen were crossing the site after a shift on duty, banging their gloved hands together to try and beat some warmth back into their fingers.

‘Here, slow down – I’ll do your back,’ Jen said. She walked behind Molly, pounding rhythmically on her back, and then Molly did the same for her. It sometimes helped to get a bit warmer. ‘God – I thought the spring was s’posed to be here! It feels as bad as January today!’

‘I’m dying for a cuppa,’ Molly said. ‘Come on – let’s get over there quick.’

In the distance, a truck had pulled up and there was some activity going on around it. Two ATS emerged from inside and an officer pointed them towards the Nissen huts behind Molly and Jen. The two women started walking towards them. After a few seconds, Molly focused on them, narrowing her eyes. One was a corporal, but it was the other who seemed somehow familiar and became more so as she drew nearer – the way she walked, and the strands of hair escaping from under her cap, vivid in the morning sun.

‘It
can’t
be,’ Molly said.

‘What’re you on about?’ Jen said. ‘Who’re they?’

Molly was only certain when they drew right up close. The red hair, the pink, pretty complexion.

‘
Cath?
’

The woman turned, recognition turning into an overjoyed grin. ‘Oh!
Molly!
’

‘What’re you . . . ?’ Molly became speechless, realizing that she couldn’t ask Cath such private questions in front of the others.
What about your baby. What happened?

‘I’ve come to replace someone on the predictor. There’s a girl off sick.’

‘Oh yes – Ann. That means you’re in our team!’ Molly cried, delighted.

‘Look,’ the corporal said impatiently, ‘just come and get signed in – I’ll show you your quarters, and then you can chinwag all you like.’

‘I’ll meet you in the NAAFI,’ Molly called as Cath was marched away. ‘Come and have a cuppa!’

Molly went with Jen to the NAAFI full of excitement. It was so good to see Cath again! But there were all sorts of questions whirling round in her head. They took their tea to a table, and Jen said, ‘I’ll get this down me and clear off when she comes, so you can have a catch up.’

‘You don’t need to go – you’ll get along with her all right.’

‘I daresay – but I’ve got a few things to do,’ Jen said. ‘No offence.’

She downed her tea and was gone even before Cath arrived, leaving Molly to peer at the posters on the NAAFI wall behind her. They were about the Beveridge Report which everyone seemed to be talking about – how they were going to make things better and fairer after the war. Molly sat musing on the few words she could make out, which spelled out the things the powers-that-be proposed to do away with: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. The words made her think of Iris, then she tried not to think about her. Too late for any improvement in Iris.

‘You’re in a nice daydream there!’ Cath was standing in front of her, smiling, having fetched a cup of tea on her way over, and some bread and margarine, already curling at the edges. ‘Did you want another cuppa, Molly?’

‘No, I’m all right ta,’ Molly said. ‘Sit down. It’s lovely to see yer. You look ever so well.’ Cath seemed even more vividly pretty than before.

Cath stared at her. ‘Well, you’ve changed all right,’ she said. ‘I never thought you’d make it, to be honest, the way you were in basic training.’

Molly gave a wry smile. ‘Yeah, well. I decided I might as well try and fit the bill.’ She didn’t mention Phoebe Morrison’s part in it. ‘I thought they’d throw me out too. I ran off once and got brought back by the redcaps and decided to try and pull myself together.’ Cath was listening sympathetically, sipping her tea. ‘My fella – we were on leave together, down in London, and he was killed by a bomb. UXB. Knocked me aside for a bit.’

‘Dear God, well of course it did,’ Cath said, her blue eyes softening. After a moment she picked up a slice of the bread and held it up. ‘God bless the bread.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘My granddad used to say that. His father lived through the famine. Never a crumb was to be wasted.’

Molly smiled, watching Cath tuck into the bread. But it wasn’t the time for beating about the bush. Both of them had suffered. Despite Cath’s cheerful demeanour, Molly could sense it in her.

‘What happened, Cath?’ she asked softly. ‘The babby and everything.’

‘Ah, well . . .’ Cath took a sip of tea and cradled the mug up close to her face, staring into the distance. Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped them with the heel of her hand. ‘I had the baby. I was sent to a home in London. They weren’t very nice, but at least it was a roof over my head. I can’t go back, see, to Ireland, not with the disgrace of it, and there’s too many of us. What would my father do with me turning up with a fatherless child? Anyway, I had her, and I gave her up.’ The words came out in a rush. ‘My little Bernadette, that’s what I call her. She’s gone to a new mother, somewhere – I suppose she’ll call her something else.’ Quivering with the effort of holding in her raw emotion, still so near the surface, Cath looked desperately into Molly’s eyes. ‘Don’t think the worst of me, will you? Please don’t! I had no one, and no home to call my own. I just thought, if I can let her go to a better place, a family, and I can get back into the army, well, then maybe I can make something of my life. With her to look after, we’d have both gone under. Sometimes I tell myself I should’ve done anything to keep her and make a home for her. I’ll doubt myself for the rest of my life. But I was frightened, Molly. They said she’d have a good home . . .’

Molly laid her hand over Cath’s, aching with sorrow for her. ‘I’m sure she will – they’re good like that . . .’ She had no idea if this was true, but she wanted to be comforting. Cath seemed so much older than before, sadness running through her like a crack in a vase.

‘When she’d been gone just a few days, I reapplied to join up. They sent me for training, on the predictors, and I’ve been round and about ever since. Then a whole lot of things happened – one of our girls fell for a baby as well . . .’ She smiled ironically. ‘They stood our battery down and split us up to fill in gaps around the place – so here I am.’

‘It’s ever so nice that you’ve come,’ Molly said. ‘You seen anyone else on your travels?’

‘From basic? No, except one of those girls from Nottingham, at my first training camp. The mouthy one.’