The Gunner Girl (15 page)

One of the Home Guard men started whistling ‘Leaning on the Lamp-Post'. Sergeant Farr didn't tell him to be quiet. She never said anything to the men; they got away with
murder. Another of the men sparked up a ciggie. Bea, standing ready with her binoculars, began to tap her foot in time to the man's whistling. Sheila Carter, on the other side of the
predictor, began to suck her teeth. The smell of smoke drifted past.

‘Give it a rest, will you?' said Joan. Bea stopped tapping, but the whistling carried on, and Sheila Carter continued to suck her teeth. Sergeant Farr paced past. Joan sighed.

‘What is it, Joan?' whispered Edie. ‘You've been like this all day.'

‘Like what?' said Joan. But she knew full well like what. She'd had another letter from Rob this morning.

‘Your Rob' was how he'd signed it. He'd missed out the ‘s'. Not ‘Yours, Rob' but ‘Your Rob'. Maybe he just misspelt it? But what if he
hadn't? There was all that stuff about his last sortie and wondering if he'd see her again. Your Rob – was he really hers?

She could still barely remember him. And when she tried, she saw his blue eyes, heard his voice shouting ‘get down, get down', smelled crushed flowers, burnt air, and a nauseating
blackness rose up inside. His letters unsettled her, but she always wrote back, the link between them like a sharp little thread of red cotton, a kite string on a windy day, bound too tight round
her finger, always pulling, nagging.

Her gloved hands clenched and unclenched on the wooden handles, ready to turn and angle the barrel on the predictor. She'd have to stop writing to him. Yes, that was the answer; not get
involved. Next chance she had, she'd go out to the Palais and find herself a chap who didn't know anything about her. She could stop the panic she felt every time she remembered
Rob's face, and realised that that was all she could remember, that beyond Rob was just an expanse of darkness, and a buzzing in her skull. She could get rid of those feelings if she just got
rid of him, stopped writing those stupid letters: a clean slate.

‘Joan, if something's bothering you, you can talk to me, you know,' said Edie.

‘I'm fine,' Joan replied.

‘Everyone, hush a moment,' said Bea, scanning the searchlit horizon with her binoculars. The man stopped whistling and Gunner Smith stopped making sucking noises and Sergeant Farr
stopped pacing. They all listened, but there was nothing to hear, just a faint rustle of twigs in the bare trees by the huts and the growl of a night bus passing Marble Arch.

Joan's head was still pushed against the chill of the predictor. She thought about what Rob had said in his letter: six searchlights and a fighter on their tail. Were there girls like them
in Germany right now? A Nazi version of the ATS? Helgas and Brunhildes, or whatever they were called over there, shouting commands in German into the chilly night, trying to snatch her Rob out of
the sky. Her Rob? Was he hers? No, he wasn't, because she'd decided not to write back, hadn't she? Tonight would be an end to it.

She felt it first, rather than heard it, a vibration in the metal that was still pressed against her temple. The vibration became a distant hum, getting louder as she listened.
She pulled her head away from the predictor. The others had heard it too. Everyone started to huddle closer to their equipment, frowning, readying.

Stand by!

Standing by!

The planes were droning louder now, giant hornets gathering speed towards them. There was the distant whee-crash as the first bomb fell, but it was too far away. The phosphorescent cage of
searchlights spun and splayed but there was nothing there, not yet. The buzzing was intense now, more crashes, fiery footfalls, closer and louder. Ah, there was one – the shape of a bomber
like a minnow in a pool.

Plane, bearing three-one-zero!

Angle one-eight.

Angle one-eight, bearing three-one-zero!

She pedalled the handles and the barrel manoeuvred into position. A sound in her head, bomber engines thudding, bluebottles buzzing inside her skull.

On target!

On target!

A minnow caught in the net of lights. Sergeant Farr lifted her hand into the air. There was the heave and clunk as the shells were heaved into the gun. A voice tinny and far away.

Ready!

Fire!

The angry shout and recoil of the enormous gun, muffled as if through cotton wool, and everything blanched, momentarily white. Fairy dust flickered in the sky and then with a sudden roar
something fireballed earthwards, crashing into flames, south of Chelsea. Livid splash of blood against the sky, smoke gushing upwards like steam. The air smelled metallic, dark, burnt. A taste of
bile in her mouth; she swallowed it down. The buzzing roar as more waves of bombers came in. The night roared on, the yells of soldiers and crackle of shells exploding into the night, and the
gaping mouth glow as bombs crashed and houses burnt. And the world turned relentless pirouettes and screamed at them.

By daybreak, and the all clear, the spinning slowed and the colours returned, the dawn sky a smear of red on beige. Joan's shoulders ached from pedalling the handles, and her voice was
hoarse from shouting. Her stomach churned.

The cookhouse bought a trolley out at first light. The soldiers poured with weary haste towards it. They had sweet tea and jam sandwiches in grimy fingers, leaning up against the sandbags,
saggy-eyed and jubilant. The Junior Commander came out, said she'd had a call, the hit was confirmed, the pilot and all the crew dead. There was a cheer at the news, but Joan didn't
join in.

In the rush to eat, crow about the night's success and get cleaned up, she slipped away, clutching her enamel mug of tea, warming her fingers through the gloves. The ground felt
undulating, unsure. She looked at the glassy morning sky, acid and empty. She thought about Rob. When she'd finished her tea, and her fingers had defrosted, she slid into the hut and sat down
on her bed. She had some sheets of paper left in the writing set she'd bought. It was still in her locker.

Dear Rob,
she began. It was only once she started writing that she realised how much her hands were trembling.

Steam escaped from the urn and the air was thick with the clatter and crash of the breakfast dishes and the smell of burnt toast and frying spam. Cooks hollered above the drone
of early morning chatter. ‘
We're out of toast!
' Bea manoeuvred herself into her usual chair in the corner, next to Joan and opposite Edie, her head thick with noise,
bleary-eyed and enervated as the rest of the night crew. That had not been a small raid. At the far end of the table Sheila Carter was saying loudly that if Edie had been a bit quicker shouting her
bearings then they might have had a shot at the other plane, too. Bea heard Joan shouting at her to shut up. Bea's thoughts were shoving and jostling in her over-tired mind. The raid reminded
her of the night Baby was born, and she was thinking about Jock. Was Ma right? Was she stupid to expect to ever hear from him again?

‘Post!' yelled Corporal Whitehead, banging open the cookhouse door and tossing piles of envelopes out over the tables.

Edie reached up to catch a squashy parcel with her left hand. Her ma often sent presents: little bars of scented soap in wrapping paper; lace-edged hankies; stockings and silk scarves –
Edie was generous and shared her gifts with Bea and Joan, who never got parcels themselves. Bea wasn't expecting anything much. Ma didn't write. Vi sent news of Baby Val sometimes, but
Vi was busy with her new job in the pub. Joan usually got something from her Rob, but there was nothing for her today. Joan was still exchanging insults with Sheila Carter. Edie was pulling off the
knotted string. Bea reached for the margarine and picked up her knife.

‘One for you, and the last one for . . . you!' The corporal threw over the last letter, catching Bea's eye. Bea watched it fly. It was a forces airmail letter, and it was
headed straight for her. She stopped breathing, dropped her knife, as she watched it flutter like a leaf, almost landing on top of her toast. She caught it in time. Jock? She ripped it open.

Bea stopped. It didn't look like Jock's writing. His looped, sloped left. This was all tight and jittery, like the person writing it was being continually nudged. She read on, but
there was no mention of Baby, or any of the letters she'd written.

The letter continued. Bea felt her shoulders slump. It wasn't Jock. Jock was in North Africa. This was someone else's letter. She scanned to the bottom of the page.

Inside felt like water swilling down a drain. Stupid. Stupid of her to think it might be Jock. Someone else had a fiancé up in the Arctic called Fred. That was all. She turned the letter
over to look at the address. It had originally been sent to the basic training camp in Honiton, then redirected to the technical training base in Arborfield, and had finally found its way here to
Hyde Park Battery, trailing some soldier's passage through the system. Who was it? The cramped writing was so hard to read . . .

Joan Tucker
, it said. But Joan had Rob. Who was Fred? It was none of her business. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, that's what Ma always said. Bea quickly
re-folded the letter.

‘Joan,' she nudged her friend, who was facing the other way, glowering at Sheila.

‘Hmm?' Joan turned.

‘Sorry opened by mistake. This one's for you, girl.' Bea handed over the ripped aerogramme. Joan, frowning, took it from her and unfolded it. Bea watched her face as she read.
The frown gave way to a stare of incomprehension and Bea noticed a stray strand of hair on Joan's cheek begin to twitch, rhythmically as her eyes scanned down. Joan made a strange
clicking-gurgling sound and the letter dropped from her fingers and she slipped sideways in her chair. Bea just managed to catch her before Joan began to puke, violently, yellow chunks of bile all
over the table. Bea saw Edie's hand reach out, keeping Joan's hair off her face as she vomited again and again. The other soldiers shot up, but Edie and Bea stayed with Joan, ignoring
the warm wet stench of it all over everything.

‘Better out than in,' Bea said, feeling the roughness of Joan's uniform under her fingertips as she stroked her back. Afterwards, Edie took Joan back to bed, and Bea helped
clean up the mess in the cookhouse. The airmail letter was covered in sick and got thrown away. There was no keeping it.

Bea slopped disinfectant on the table and wondered about the sailor in the Arctic who thought he was engaged to Joan. Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies, she reminded herself.
So she didn't ask Joan about Fred, not that day; not until months later, when she had to.

Joan's chest contracted as the train drew in.
WANGLED A DAY'S LEAVE. TOMORROW 10.00 AT WATERLOO
, was all the telegram had said. She'd
had to sweet-talk one of the girls from the reserve troop to swap duties with her; it cost her a new lipstick, too.

The train belched steam. Bodies thrust and jarred against her: beige and black and khaki and navy: colours bouncing and blending and the smell of damp wool and engine smoke. At least it
wasn't too cold here, out of the bite of the early spring north-easterly. Her eyes skittered, looking for the smoky blue RAF uniform. Was he behind the man with the bowler over there? No. Or
the large lady in the fur coat further up? No. But he might be right at the back, up near the guard's van, if he'd brought a bicycle – but why would he bring his bicycle? Maybe
he'd already got out and she'd missed him somehow; maybe he was behind one of those pillars, slicking back his hair and putting on his RAF cap. Was that him? No, no, that man was fair
and too tall. She thought Rob was shorter, darker, stockier, but she couldn't really remember.

She looked and looked and the disgorging passengers continued to push past until eventually the doorways were all empty of people and luggage, the train like a discarded snake skin, left behind
and empty. A picture came into her head of a schoolbook, a black and white drawing of a snake slithering from its discarded skin.
Snakes slough off their old selves
was written in large
text underneath. She remembered that. She tried to envision beyond the book page. A schoolroom, or a bedroom? What did it look like? Who was there with her? Nothing, nobody: empty space.