The Gunner Girl (13 page)

Bea had been up early with Vi, making spam sandwiches for them all, and she'd used the last of her wages to buy iced buns, enough for everyone – not even the twins would have to
share. Vi fell into step next to her.

‘You all right, Bea?' she said.

‘Course,' said Bea. ‘Why wouldn't I be?'

It was cold in the house, but too early to light the fire, so Pa told the little ones to run up and downstairs a few times to get warm and May went to get Baby's blanket from her cot. It
was the one made from the crocheted squares that she'd started on the train: yellow and black and brown, and two soft fuzzy blue ones with the wool that the posh girl had given her –
not the best colours for a little girl, but still, beggars can't be choosers. Baby was nodding off, now, as Ma wrapped her up in the blanket.

‘Can I hold her?' said Bea.

‘I was about to put her down,' said Ma.

A look passed between them and Ma handed over the bundle. Bea looked down at the child's sleeping face and searched for traces of her father there. Did she have Jock's nose? It was
hard to tell.

Pa went out to buy lemonade and, when he came back, they had the spam sandwiches and the iced buns and Ma made tea. Pa had a pack of Player's, so they all had a smoke, and then a bit
later, Vi lit the fire. Bea's arm was aching from holding Baby all that time, but she ignored the pain.

When Baby woke up Ma took her upstairs to change her, and then brought her back down and mashed up bread and warm milk in a bowl to feed to her. Pa made another brew and they had another smoke
and he talked to her for a while about basic training and army life. And it occurred to Bea that maybe what he'd done was a kind of gypsy-switch in his head, and that to him she was no longer
his daughter, she was just another soldier, and that was what made it possible for him to keep up the pretence that Baby wasn't hers at all.

Later, Bea played cat's cradle with Rita, even though Rita was too old to be playing games like that and should really have been helping Ma with the dishes. Outside, the light was just
beginning to fade and the clock tower in the market square clanged four times. Bea stood up. ‘I'd better be off,' she said.

‘Can't you stay one more night?' said Rita. ‘It's much warmer in the bed with four.'

‘I have to be back by first parade,' said Bea.

Rita pouted. Ma put Baby in the playpen and came over to them. Bea looked over to the corner of the room. Baby was playing peek-a-boo with the twins, gurgling and clapping her hands with
excitement.

‘Valerie is a nice name, Ma,' she said at last.

‘I thought you'd like it,' said her ma. ‘She looks just like a Val, don't she?'

Bea walked over to the playpen and Baby stretched up her arms as she saw her approach. ‘Bye-bye, Valerie,' said Bea, giving a wave. Baby shook a little paw back at her. Bea leant
over to give her a kiss. The girl's mouth was dribbling and the kiss a wet blot, but Bea didn't care. ‘Bye now, little Val,' she said, waving again, but as she did so, one
of the twins popped up again – boo! – and Baby turned away, laughing, distracted.

‘I'll walk you to the station,' said Pa stiffly as she pulled on her coat. ‘Here, I've got it.' He picked up her case for her. She hugged her brothers and
sisters and last of all Ma, but she didn't go back to the playpen where Baby was chewing on an old cotton reel.

Just as she was leaving, Vi rushed up. ‘We're all very proud of you, Bea,' she said, giving her one last squeeze. Bea shrugged. There didn't seem so much to be proud of.
Army life was easier than home: she had her own bed in the barrack block for starters. And there was always enough to eat; she could eat her fill at every meal without feeling guilty.

Outside, the chill bit hard, even through the thickness of the heavy woollen coat. The streets were empty, save for the odd bike scudding past. It would be blackout soon.

‘You don't have to come, Pa.'

‘I want to.'

‘I can manage on my own, you know.'

‘I know.'

They walked along in silence, just the sound of their footfalls and the occasional rush of a passing bus. The sky was clear and the moon rising, a crescent wrapped in a cottonwool haze. The
frost would set in later.

The platform was deserted except for a young lad with a crate of chickens. Periodically, a feathered head appeared between the wooden slats, squawking sadly. Bea looked at Pa. He had his
greatcoat on, too. They looked like a cruet set in their matching outfits. Pa had his beret on, but you could see his dark hair was greying at the sides. His moustache was greying, too. His face
looked as if someone had been moulding it from clay, but tired before they finished it off properly; it was creased and pitted, the eyes sunken into their sockets. His breath made clouds in front
of his face. There was a high-pitched whistle as the train rounded the corner and then it roared into the station, shattering the quiet with clanking, jarring, hissing, and shuddering to a
halt.

Abruptly, Pa stuck out a hand and Bea realised she was supposed to take it and as she did so he stepped in, pulling her closer and patting her hard on the back. He cleared his throat, and
sniffed, and thumped harder. Something passed between them then, but she wasn't sure what it was. Maybe it was just a mutual acceptance.

She got on the train and he passed up her case to her. There was standing room only; it was packed with sailors. She stood, between the carriage door and the man with the chickens, and looked
down at her pa on the platform: diminished and monochrome in the winter evening.

She thought about her new friends at the training centre in Arborfield, the bustle of barrack life, the warmth, and the food. She thought about the cold little terrace she'd just left
behind. And she thought about Baby, gurgling and plump in her playpen. Why had Jock never written?

‘Go well,' she saw Pa mouth, as she watched through the glass. He lifted a hand in half-wave, half-salute as the train jerked her away.

Dry mouth. Hunger. The hunger kept him going, sometimes, when tiredness struck on the return journey – the thought of breakfast. Once, early on, long ago now, his parents
had sent a parcel, and it was six of the tiniest pork pies, nestling inside an egg box and a note from his mother:
Dad got these for you. Take them with you, for when you get peckish.
Peckish – like he was on one of their charabanc trips to Torquay. Peckish: he was more than peckish now. He could never manage supper before a sortie.

The light was rearing up behind them as they headed west towards the wedge of darkness. The engine noise reverberated inside his helmet. His fingers were stiff with cold. His head ached. He
needed a piss. And he could just about die for one of those pork pies right now.

Just about die.

The sea was beneath them now, grey blankness. Here was where they caught Harper, near enough. You thought you were almost safe once you hit the channel, homeward bound, but they could be sneaky
buggers – you couldn't let your guard down. Was Harper thinking of breakfast when they got him? Or was he thinking of Dorothy, at home, waiting and hoping for daybreak?

Missing, presumed dead, that's what they told his parents. Why didn't they say killed in action? There was no body, no absolute confirmation; he might have ditched, swum to shore,
how could one be certain, they said. But Rob knew what he'd seen. And he knew the feeling, the clench-dread as the flames fell away – and the guilty prayer: thank you God for sparing
me, this time. That feeling came over him every time they crossed the channel home: the mixture of dread and guilt. He'd pissed himself that night, when Harper went down.

Rob blinked, wiped some condensation off the panel with the tip of his leather glove. Skipper barked an order and he responded automatically, checked and re-checked and gave his response. He
could have done this bit in his sleep if he'd wanted to: the ennui of the final descent.

Harper: schoolfriend, best pal, dead and gone. But Rob was still here, night after bloody night. He had a nickname in the mess: Bad Penny – he always turned up.

The dawn was crashing down over them like a wave as they crested the white cliffs and England was patch-worked below them. Home, he thought. Home is where the heart is. And he remembered Joan.
And he wondered if she'd got his last letter yet.

‘What's that?' – a voice in the darkness, and a violent rattling noise.

Edie opened her eyes, but there was nothing but inchoate shadows and the juddering of the hut walls, and the noise, a terrible fast ratcheting sound. Then she realised what it was: a stick was
being run around the corrugated iron of the Nissen hut. Edie sat up, remembering what it meant. ‘Invasion alarm – someone put a light on!' she yelled.

‘I've tried, they've cut the electric,' came a hoarse shout from across the room. The horrible sound abruptly stopped, and she heard footsteps moving away outside. Then
it started again, muffled now, on A–section's hut, across the path from theirs. Edie still couldn't see anything, but a mass of darkened shapes.

‘What in Christ's name are we supposed to do?' – the first voice again.

‘Battle dress, and then out to the transport,' said Edie, pushing back the blankets and getting out of bed. All around her she could sense the room lumbering from slumber, but it was
quiet except for the sound of quick breathing and the swish of fabric as they struggled into their uniform. Edie pulled off her pyjamas. The night air was sharp against her sleep-warmed skin.
Bloomers, brassiere, shirt, trousers, gaiters, boots – it was easy enough to find the right uniform because constant room inspections meant that she knew to within, a quarter of an inch where
each item was kept, but her cold fingers fumbled with catches and laces. More haste, less speed, Edith Elizabeth, she told herself. Her heart felt as if it was trying to hurl itself up her throat.
Could this really be an invasion?

The rattling noises had stopped completely now, but in the distance she heard the sound of engines spluttering into life: the transport was ready. ‘Come on, Gunners, look lively!'
– a shout from outside. Edie fiddled with the string on her gas cape, and grabbed her gas mask. Her helmet went on last, chinstrap garrotting.

‘Come on, girl,' she recognised Bea's voice, felt a hand tugging hers. At the last minute, she remembered, pulling the little Bible off the top of her locker as she passed, and
shoving it into her pocket. At the hut door they paired up blindly, and the corporal ordered them to march at the double all the way to the lorries that were waiting by the camp gates.

Outside, the half-moon was high and bright, the air a sudden burst of sour-cold. They broke into an immediate double along the path, boots crunching on the icy cinders. Their breath rose in
steamy clouds, shrouding the sprinkled stars.

As they jogged past the next hut, A-section fell in wordlessly behind them. The path joined the main drag through camp, leading on up a gentle slope towards the exit. The cold air stung her
throat but her limbs were warm with exertion, sweat beginning to form at her hairline and in her armpits. Bea was next to her, panting in time to their footfalls. Edie found herself thinking about
other soldiers, in different uniforms – jackboots and swastikas – running up beaches, towards white cliffs, their voices barking, harsh and alien, towards pretty seaside towns.

They ran past the parade square and hit the hill. The hill was usually the point where they got shouted at, told to dig deep, push on, and stop fannying about. But this time nobody said a word.
Nobody needed to. They kept up the pace, ignoring the breathlessness, the awkward banging of gasmasks, the way their helmets started to slide down as the sweat formed on their foreheads. On towards
the waiting lorry, a chuntering black oblong with the headlights turned off, waiting to take them away – but to take them where?

They bundled into the back of the truck, shoved roughly from behind by the corporal. Edie found herself squashed in with the girls from A-section. Slumped up against each other in the darkness,
they waited. Her breathing began to return to normal. The smell of sweat mingled with diesel fumes.

There were voices in the driver's cab. Abruptly, the engine was cut. But nobody came to tell them to get out. Still they waited, colder now, without the engine. Her chinstrap was digging
right in, and she realised she needed the loo. There were footsteps around the truck, and muttered voices – she couldn't make out what they were saying.

Then she heard Joan from across the lumped-up group. ‘This invasion alarm, it is just a drill, isn't it? I mean, it can't be the real thing?'

Half the night they spent out in the truck, until dawn broke and they were ordered to double-back to camp, just in time for the bugler to sound Reveille. Speculation was rife
over the soggy toast at breakfast. ‘It had to be a drill,' said Joan, swigging her tea and leaning back in her chair.

‘But why risk a drill the night before we're posted?' said Bea, chewing rapidly. ‘You'd think they'd do it during the course proper, not right at the last
moment. I think it was a real alarm, it just turned out false, what d'you reckon?'

Edie pushed her plate away and shook her head. ‘I don't know, dear. And I doubt they'll ever tell us, either way.' It had been a calm, clear night, though. And if she
were in charge of troop movements, it would be exactly the kind of night she'd pick to send her soldiers into battle, thought Edie, picking up her breakfast things and preparing to get
up.

Nobody expected the news that came after first parade. Word was that they'd have most of the day free. The training was complete and their unit was due to be posted in to
the anti-aircraft emplacement at Hyde Park that night. The new batch of recruit trainees was due in the following day. But the sergeant major ordered them to march to the armoury.