The Gunner Girl (10 page)

‘You gunner girls have all got a forty-eight-hour pass, haven't you? Got anything planned?' Corporal Jones voice broke in on her thoughts.

Joan sucked in a breath. She had almost managed to forget about that. Bea had a christening to go to, and Edie was off to a ball with her friend Marjorie. The rest of the troop were going home
to their families, boyfriends, pals or relatives. Everyone had somewhere to go, except her. The leave pass ran right from first parade Saturday through to Monday morning – a whole
weekend.

‘I'm sure something will turn up,' she said nonchalantly.

‘I'm supposed to be on duty, but I could try to swap with someone if – if you'd like to go out? But I expect you already have plans?'

She didn't answer him, knowing that he'd take her hesitation as evasion. Of course, she could go out with him on Saturday, but what about the rest of the weekend? She couldn't
go home, because she hadn't a clue where it was, and every time she tried to think, there was just a squirming nausea, and the smell of something burnt and the pounding in her head.

They brushed into Junior Commander Montagu, who was being expertly twirled by Sergeant Taylor. ‘Yes, the whole troop's off,' Joan heard her saying, ‘and won't the
camp feel empty without the ATS?' Sergeant Taylor muttered something into her ear and she laughed, showing little white teeth, like a shark's. ‘Yes, well I suppose it would have
to be something terribly naughty to forfeit leave,' she tinkled, as they swirled past.

Corporal Jones's button was beginning to dig into her cheek. Joan made a decision. ‘Why wait until Saturday?' she said. ‘You've got a bike, haven't you?
Let's hot-foot it down to the village now.'

The dance ended and she pulled away from him. She could see his face clearly, his sad grey eyes widening at her suggestion. It was his turn not to answer.

‘You're not turning me down, are you, Corporal Jones?' she said, smiling.

‘No, it's just that . . .'

‘Well, come on then, get your coat,' she tugged him off the dance floor just as the bandleader announced another Hokey Cokey and everyone else began to form a huge circle.

They plummeted through the night on his bike, the air an icy river flowing past them. He steered with one hand and held onto her with the other and the bicycle lamp was a
feeble wobbling beam, illuminating occasional trees and surprising corners. At last, they tumbled, laughing, into the village pub. Five old men put down their pints to stare in silence. Joan
rearranged her uniform and patted down her hair. Corporal Jones cleared his throat and asked what she'd like to drink. Five old men picked up their pints and the darkened corners began to
grumble with conversation again. The barman stopped polishing the brasses and regarded them through wire-rimmed spectacles. Joan found a circular table and sat down. As she waited for Corporal
Jones to bring her drink, she caught the eye of one of the old men and smiled at him. He smiled back, blackened spaces where teeth were missing. She took out her new lipstick in its perfect gold
case and dotted it along her pout, and Corporal Jones came over with half a cider in a lady's glass. He had a pint.

‘You make me feel like a bad lad bunking off school,' he said, sitting down beside her.

‘Are you a bad lad?' she said, looking sideways at him and sipping her drink. She noticed a flush on his throat. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he drank.

‘Not really, not until now,' he said, putting down his pint. His smile mismatched with his lugubrious eyes.

‘Nobody will even notice we're gone,' she said, patting his thigh. The cloth was still chill and damp from the bike ride. ‘Want a smoke?' She got her Player's
out of her gas-mask case. He shook his head.

‘Suit yourself. Bother, forgot my matches.'

She walked over to where the old men sat, a circle of brown toads, and asked if they had a light. Two of them looked in the other direction, but the one with the missing teeth had a lighter and
sparked up for her. She offered her cigarettes round, and even the two who'd ignored her took one. She glanced over at Corporal Jones and gave him a wink. He had almost finished his pint
already.

‘From the camp?' said the toothless man. She said that she was and that she was very proud to be doing her bit.

‘Don't hold for women in the army,' said another man, drawing deeply on his cigarette. He said it wasn't right that women should be out there, that their place was at
home. She agreed with him absolutely, she said, but of course all the men soldiers were very busy in North Africa and places, and in any case it was the Home Guard who did the actual firing. The
man grunted.

She smiled at him. ‘Lets say you lose a sock at home, who is the best person to find it?'

‘The missus.'

‘Well, socks or enemy planes, it's the same difference. We're spotters. All we do is find them. Like your wife finding your socks, that's all,' she was still
smiling, making eye contact with each old man in turn.

‘She's right, you know, Alf,' said one.

‘Well, I think it's a fine thing, what you girls are doing,' said another.

‘I'd like to buy you a drink,' said the toothless one.

‘Oh, it's all right. I'm with a pal,' she said, gesturing to Corporal Jones.

‘Well, I'd like to buy him a drink and all,' said toothless, beginning to heave himself out of his seat.

‘How kind of you,' said Joan, reaching across the table to tip her ash into the ashtray.

The journey back took considerably longer than the journey there. It had started snowing while they were in the pub, a ripped bolster in a pillow fight, downy flakes everywhere
and the road slick with ice. Seven times they fell, and seven times they retrieved themselves, giggling. She let him kiss her, but his lips were too cold, and his tongue too large and in any case
they started to shiver when they stood still. The snow swirled, and they half rode, half stumbled back to camp. By the time they reached the gates they were soaked through and beginning to sober
up. It was impossible to sneak past the sentry with the bike. Of course they were caught, and of course they were told to report to their respective commanding officers first thing in the
morning.

‘I hardly need tell you how shocked and mortified I was to learn of your behaviour last night.' Junior Commander Montagu stood rigid behind the desk with a look of
righteous indignation on her heart-shaped face. Joan looked straight ahead, staring out of the window behind her to where the drill square had been cleared of snow and the sergeant major was
already pacing, twirling his baton. Commander Montagu carried on, talking about the disappointment that such a promising recruit – look at the initiative she'd shown with that incident
with the Scottish girl – could let herself down so badly: late back to barracks, drunk, with a man. Commander Montagu shook her pretty blonde curls and continued: it was different for the
men, she said, they didn't have their reputations to think about, but the ATS, particularly those in a mixed battery, had to be beyond reproach.

Joan thought about Commander Montagu and Sergeant Taylor and the way they'd danced at the hop and wondered whether Commander Montagu was herself ‘beyond reproach', but she said
nothing, watching the rest of her troop filing out onto the drill square, ready for the final parade before their weekend leave.

‘Gunner Tucker, you leave me with no option but to revoke your forty-eight-hour leave pass and confine you to barracks for the weekend,' said Commander Montagu, a little V-shaped
frown between her arched brows.

Joan breathed out, feeling her face relax. She didn't have to take leave. She wasn't going anywhere.

‘Well, have you anything to say for yourself ?' said Commander Montagu.

‘I'm very sorry, ma'am. It won't happen again,' said Joan.

‘I should certainly hope not. Dismissed.'

Joan closed the hut door behind her and turned away from the drill square. Confined to barracks for the weekend: never had punishment been such blessed relief.

Her shoes slid on the frozen path as she walked away from the HQ block and the drill square and out towards the NAAFI. She could have a brew, a smoke and spend the whole day reading magazines if
she jolly well wanted to. Inside the NAAFI hut, the stove was lit, the shelves were full of cigarettes and chocolate, and Ethel was leaning over the counter, staring at the back page of a
newspaper, fag in one hand, pencil in the other.

‘Tag, you're it,' she said, not looking up.

‘Sorry?' Joan had paused near the stove, stretching her hands out to absorb the warmth.

Ethel looked up, her salt-and-pepper hair scraped away from her doughy jowls. ‘Tag, you're it, eight letters, last letter “y”,' she said, frowning. ‘I
shouldn't bother with the cryptic ones really.'

‘Identity,' said Joan, rubbing her hands and walking over to the counter.

‘What's that, duckie?'

‘Identity. Identity tag, see? And your identity, “you're it”,' she looked down at the paper. ‘There, links up with Ypres in your seven across.'

‘So it does. No flies on you, duckie,' said Ethel, scribbling in the letters. ‘What can I get you?'

‘Tea and a copy of
Woman
, please.'

She would have a cup of tea and read a bit of her magazine and then save the rest to read in the long bath she planned to have – as long as she wanted because there'd be nobody
banging on the door and claiming it was their turn – and then the whole weekend stretched ahead: forty-eight hours alone, the others all gone. But that didn't matter, did it? Because
she was here, and she was Joan Tucker, and she was safe.

Ethel handed over the tea and the magazine. Joan thanked and paid her. The front cover of the magazine had a painting of a blonde pouty woman in an ATS uniform looking sidelong at a dark-haired
soldier. They looked remarkably like Commander M and Sergeant T at the hop, Joan thought. ‘Love is a Mantrap', a complete story by Frances Shields, it said underneath. She'd read
that later, in the tub, she decided, sitting down as close to the stove as she could. Joan took a gulp of tea. It was strong and sweet, just how she liked it.

The radio was on, but turned down low, with scratchy news announcements that nobody wanted to listen to. Ethel had gone back to glaring at the crossword, switching between sucking on her fag and
chewing the end of her pencil. The door banged open, breathing in a blast of biting cold air. It was Sergeant Taylor.

‘Naughty, naughty, very naughty,' he said, grinning and wagging his finger when he noticed her. She shrugged and he swung round to her table. ‘Listen, Gunner, you know what
they say: “If you can't be good, be careful.” Next time, why don't you take a man who knows his way in after curfew?' Then he gave her a wink, before swinging back
towards the counter.

‘Twenty Woodbines and a Mars bar please, Ethel my darling, and may I say how gorgeous you're looking this morning.'

‘Wha'? Oh, right you are, Jack.' Ethel cranked her puffy form into action.

Joan started to leaf through the magazine: how to make your lipstick last longer; ten new ways to cook carrots; the problem pages – they were always worth a look: Worried Blue Eyes, said
the headline, but before she could start to read, Sergeant Taylor was at the table.

‘You don't mind, Gunner?' he said, as his chair scraped on the floor. It was a rhetorical question. He was a sergeant: she could hardly refuse. The coke stove was behind her,
and her neck had started to sweat, but her feet were still icy wet from where the snow had seeped through her shoes on the journey back the previous night. Sergeant Taylor opened his Woodbines and
offered the pack to her. She took one. She didn't really like Woodbines: they tasted of old people – but it was easier than refusing. He took out his shiny gold-coloured lighter, and
cupped his hands round hers, leaning in to light her cigarette.

‘The thing with Jonesey, he's only a nipper,' he said, leaning back on two chair legs and inhaling deeply. ‘He doesn't really know his way round yet, know what I
mean?'

He was talking about Corporal Jones. She didn't really want to talk about Corporal Jones, or last night. She felt guilty about embroiling him in it, but she'd needed some way of
avoiding going on leave, and it seemed like the only way, at the time. Go out, get caught, get confined to barracks: job done. She hadn't really considered the collateral damage to Corporal
Jones. She sipped her tea and smoked the nasty Woodbine, looking at Sergeant Taylor through a lacing of smoke. He held his cigarette in his left hand. He had a gold band on his ring finger.

‘So what are you going to do, now you're confined to barracks for the weekend? All alone, without your little pals?' said Sergeant Taylor, blowing a smoke ring.

‘Oh, I don't know, I'll be fine,' said Joan, wishing he'd just bugger off and leave her alone. But then, as he was there, maybe he could help? She did feel terrible
about embroiling Corporal Jones.

‘It was all my idea, you know,' she said.

‘I don't doubt it,' said Sergeant Taylor, leaning back and regarding her through an inhalation. His legs were wide, khaki stretched tight across his groin.

‘He didn't want to. I mean, I made him, really. I'm only telling you because it doesn't seem fair, him taking the rap when it was my fault. Is there anything you could
do, as his sergeant?'

‘There's a lot I could do, but why would I?' said Sergeant Taylor, blowing smoke. ‘What's in it for me?' His knee was touching hers, and he leant forward.
‘I could get him off scot-free, if it was worth my while,' he said in a low voice, looking her in the eye.

Joan pulled away. Did he really mean what she thought he meant? Was this how it worked? She took a long drag, buying time, exhaling slowly. She could hear footfalls outside, little scurrying
steps like someone in a hurry. Sergeant Taylor stubbed out his cigarette into the rusty metal ashtray in the centre of the table and tore open his Mars bar with his teeth. He looked at Joan as he
did so. She knew that look, the one where the mouth was smiling but the eyebrows were arched upwards, like a cat ready to pounce. The door banged open and the air blasted in.