The Gunner Girl (17 page)

‘It's a postcard,' he said. She looked up. The narrow torch beam played over the card in his hands. The red London bus on the picture a sudden spot of colour, then gone.
He'd turned it over, was reading it, the light picking over the handwriting. There was silence as he read the words, then: ‘Who the hell is Rob?'

‘Shut up, will you?' she said.

‘No, I won't shut up. I think I've got a right to know who this Rob fella is.'

‘For goodness' sakes, shh.' She tilted her head upwards and to one side, listening. Yes, there it was: a very faint buzz, like wasps circling a jam jar, but far, far away.

She was already running when the siren started, its howling drowning out the sound of the incoming bombers. He caught up with her as she reached the corner of the street and
tugged her sleeve: ‘Come on, let's get down the tube station.'

‘I'm not going down the bloody tube,' she yelled, pulling away from his grasp. The siren wailed on.

He stared at her, slack-jawed and panting: ‘You'll get yourself killed.'

‘That's my choice,' she replied, shouting over the waves of sound.

He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself,' and turned, sprinting off in the direction of the tube. She paused, catching her breath, watching him get smaller and disappear into the street shadows
as he ran. He didn't look back.

The sirens abruptly stopped, and she started running again, trying not to trip on the broken paving slabs and shattered kerbstones. She could hear the bombers, an inexorable drone, getting
louder with every footfall. If she could just make it back to the battery – she veered off the Bayswater Road and into Hyde Park – not far now.

Don't slow down
, she told herself, although her breath was sawing, chest heaving, and the sound of the planes was now so loud it was impossible to tell which direction they were
flying in from. Shadows passed her periphery: the big oak trees, bandstand, an abandoned bicycle. There was a sickle moon, like a question mark above Oxford Street, shivering ahead of her as she
ran.

She stopped at the first crash, heart leaping, blinking at the sudden flash of light. But she told herself to keep going judging that it must have hit further north, beyond Regent's Park,
and there was only a few hundred yards to go. Her legs felt heavy, but she forced them on, not stopping now, even when the bombs landed nearer and the glare from the explosions meant she was
running blind: running, running, through the noise and the night.

She stopped at the battery entrance, reaching for her ID, but the Home Guard man on the gate just waved her through, flinching as another bomb landed, closer still, making the earth shudder.

Joan knew she should go straight back to the hut – their section wasn't even on duty until the morning – but she had to pass by the emplacements anyway. She hesitated, wrapped
in the clamour of it, watching the scurrying shadows of the team on the guns: coveralls and helmets and the predictor swivelling round, gun turret angling up into the darkness, pointing at the mesh
of searchlights up in the sky. They were onto one; she could see that. One girl was yelling out the bearings and one of the other girls was using the crank wheel to get the gun on target.
Position Steady!
Staff Farr raised her arm.

Here we go, thought Joan. But instead of the order to fire, there was a flash of incandescence, and a moment later a screaming roar. She was flung off her feet, a sudden hardness as she hit the
ground. She pulled herself upright, coughing, and came face to face with her staff sergeant.

‘For christsakes, Tucker, you're not even on duty, get back to bed,' Staff Farr shouted, turning angrily away. ‘Is everyone all right? Back to your stations then!
What's that?'

Someone was shouting, something about Number One being injured. Number One was the old Home Guard man – Arthur – whose job it was to fire the gun. Another bomb fell, the scream and
splash of brightness simultaneous with the bucking earth. Joan looked up and saw the fingering searchlight beams, still lighting up the enemy planes. But they couldn't fire with a man down,
could they?

Joan ran into the emplacement, dodging the predictor and finding Staff Farr kneeling next to Arthur: ‘He's conscious. He'll be fine,' she was saying to another gunner,
who'd arrived with a first-aid kit. Then she turned, seeing Joan: ‘Tucker, what did I say just now. Get the hell to bed, will you?'

‘You're a man down,' said Joan.

‘I know we're a ruddy man down,' said Staff Farr, pulling a field dressing from the open first-aid tin.

‘You can't fire the guns without Arthur. He's the only man.'

‘Bed, Tucker.' Staff Farr looked up. There was another blanching thud – further away now – and Joan could see the expression lit up on her pale face: a deep frown cutting
her forehead. The planes were still roaring in, but only men were allowed to fire the anti-aircraft gun: that was the law. And the only man they had was Arthur.

‘I can be Arthur,' said Joan. ‘I mean, we've still got a shot, haven't we?' They both looked up, away to where the searchlights still played.

‘You're not on duty, and in any case, it's against the rules,' Staff began.

‘If I'm not officially on duty, then I can't officially be doing anything against the rules, can I?' yelled Joan above the roar of another dropping bomb. Staff Farr gave
the tiniest of nods and stood up.

‘Gunners, at your stations. Predictor on target,' she barked, and the girls were back in action. Arthur, slumped up against a sandbag, holding a blooded dressing to his brow, looked
on.

Bearing three-eleven!

On target!

Position steady!

She saw Staff Farr raise her right arm.

Fire!

Joan slammed the metal hatch shut and the shell burst out of the gun turret. High in the sky, a tiny black silhouette against the yellow searchlights exploded into flames and disappeared
earthwards.

When the medics finally came to pick up Arthur, Joan slipped quietly away. It was all over by then, anyway, the thundering skies stilled, and the only sounds were of distant
fire engines. Staff Farr caught up with her, halfway back to her hut. ‘You know we can't possibly say anything about this, don't you?' she said. Joan nodded. ‘But
thanks to you, we got a hit tonight, Gunner Tucker, and I'll see you right.'

Joan slid back into the hut and fell onto her bunk. Edie was still awake. ‘I'm so relieved to see you back safe. We were all worried about you,' she whispered
from the next bed. ‘What happened?'

‘Arthur's injured, but he'll be fine,' she said. ‘They got a hit, too.' Joan shrugged off her coat, deciding against getting changed into her pyjamas –
it would be morning soon.

‘Poor Arthur,' said Edie. ‘But good news about the hit. But what I meant was, what happened to you? You were supposed to be back by eleven.'

Joan undid the laces on her brogues and pushed them off. ‘I was in Holland Park when the raid started,' she said, getting into bed.

‘And what about John?' said Edie.

‘Oh, that's all over,' said Joan with a sigh, pulling up the covers.

‘But why? You two had been getting on so well!'

‘He found that postcard from Rob, in my gas-mask case.'

‘You kept it?'

‘Well, obviously I kept it, or he wouldn't have found it.'

‘You carry it with you in your gas-mask case, all the time?'

‘Oh, shut up about it, will you.'

‘I don't know why you won't write back to him. He seemed very nice to me.'

‘Everyone seems very nice to you, Edie. Even Sheila Carter seems very nice to you.'

‘Oh, Joan!'

‘Oh, Joan yourself,' she said, bashing out a hole in the pillow.

‘Unless you lot shut up, I'll tell Sheila what you said,' came another voice, the new Geordie girl, from across the room.

‘Like I care,' said Joan, loudly. She turned under the bedclothes so she was facing the wall.

‘Edie's right, you know, girl,' said Bea in hushed tones from the bunk opposite. ‘You found a good man, and you let him go.'

‘Not you and all,' said Joan. ‘I thought you were asleep.' Her eyes were wide in the darkness, the blacked-out barrack pushing irregular shadows against her face.

‘Think anyone could sleep through that racket?' Bea said. ‘And what are you going to do about Rob?' It's plain as day you still care about him, girl.'

‘Will you both just shut up and let me sleep,' said Joan. But she stayed awake in the quiet blackness, thinking about a face with round blue eyes and dark hair, and pages and pages
of familiar handwriting and she felt a twisting ache inside, like homesickness.

‘Hop in, girls,' said Pop. Edie got into the Bentley and Joan slid in next to her. It had been an age since she'd been in a car and Edie noticed how the
barracks were now sliced up into rectangular portions by the car's windows: a portion of drill square; a portion of Nissen huts; and portions of guns, equipment and green-grey Hyde Park: her
life in little pieces. Pop got behind the wheel.

‘Used to have a driver, but he joined the merchant navy. Dead now, poor chap,' he said, slamming the door and taking his pipe off the shelf on the dashboard. This was for
Joan's benefit. Edie already knew all about the driver, Archie, a small man with a stomach like a pudding bowl and a pointy little nose. She hadn't liked him much. He always looked like
he was keeping secrets. But Cook cried for about a week when they heard the news, and even Mummy used to sigh and look pained when someone mentioned his name.

‘Are we going straight home or shall we stop off for a spot of something en route?' said Pop. Edie caught his eye in the rear-view mirror: the familiar dark brows, slash of silver
hair, grey eyes, just a little red-rimmed.

‘If we eat on the way then it will save Mummy the trouble, won't it?' said Edie, thinking of Cook, now off with the Land Army.

‘Quite,' said her father, stuffing tobacco into the pipe bowl.

‘What about that little place in Eton that does the walnut cake?' said Edie.

‘Righty-ho.'

He struck a match and puffed on the pipe. The smoke was dense and scented. Then the engine growled and with a jolt they were off and suddenly the barracks, the guns, Hyde Park, everything was
gone. She and Edie were thrown about like a Dodgem ride, and London passed by in a blur. It was the first time she'd had one of her army pals home. She was a little nervous about it, but Joan
didn't appear to have anywhere else to go on leave.

When they pulled into the gravel driveway, Edie noticed a pale face at one of the upstairs windows. But by the time they'd opened the car doors, Mummy was already waiting
by the open front door, a frozen smile on her lips. Edie introduced her, and she took Joan's hand.

‘How nice to meet one of Edith's army chums,' she said, looking Joan up and down. Then she looked away, biting her lip, and addressed Edie's father, who was locking the
car.

‘I made lunch,' she said.

‘Oh, don't worry about that, old girl. We stopped off at that place in Eton.'

‘I have it all ready.'

‘Thought we'd save you cooking.'

‘But I've cooked. You should have phoned.'

‘We'll have it for supper, then.'

Edie ushered Joan inside. Her mother followed them in.

‘Is she in the yellow room or the old nursery?' said Edie.

‘The yellow. I thought it would be warmer. And last week, we had French soldiers staying in the nursery . . .' she wrinkled her nose.

‘Yellow it is,' said Edie. ‘Follow me, Joan dear, and watch out for that bottom step. It's been loose for ever.'

Edie showed Joan around the house. It was odd being back, and seeing it through someone else's eyes. With Joan there, she noticed the huge expanse of black and white tiles in the hallway,
the worn Persian rug in the study, the carved oak banisters and half-panelled stairs. She also noticed the chill. In their little Nissen hut with the stove, they could get up quite a fug in the
evenings, what with everyone squashed in together, but here at home there were high ceilings and long corridors and nothing to fill them but the ticking of the old grandfather clock. Joan's
room – the yellow room – was probably the warmest and nicest in the house, with sun streaming in through the south-facing windows, highlighting the yellow roses on the wallpaper and the
gold silk eiderdown. But dust motes danced in the sunbeams and there were circular marks on the bedside table from old cocoa mugs. There were cobwebs in the corners.

‘Poor Mummy. It's hard without staff.' Edie shrugged.

‘It's a beautiful room,' said Joan, spinning slowly in a shaft of sunlight. ‘Your house is lovely, Edie.'

Edie said she supposed it was. She'd never thought about it before. ‘What was – what was your house like?' she said.

‘My house?' said Joan, stopping mid-twirl. Her eyes looked up and away, to a corner of the room, and her expression froze. She quivered, like a flower bud when the stem is being cut
from below, and then sat abruptly down on the bed, next to Edie.

‘Listen, would you mind if I had a little nap? I'm all in, and this bed does look a whole lot more inviting than my bunk in the hut,' she said. Her voice snipped brightly, but
her shoulders had slumped.

‘Oh, yes, of course. How insensitive of me. You must sleep; sleep as long as you want. I'll call you when it's dinner time.' Edie got up off the bed and went to the door.
She looked back before she left, to where Joan sat, in the same shaft of sunlight, a slight frown on her smooth features, then she went along the corridor to her old room.

Opening the door to her own bedroom was like stepping back in time and suddenly coming face to face with the girl she'd been four months ago. There on the shelf were her books, ranged
chronologically in order of reading, all the way from
Mother Goose
(
Les contes de ma mère l'Oye
– it was the French version) up to
Gone with the Wind
,
which she'd only just finished before she joined up. She imagined herself on that final day, waiting for the slam of the front door as her mother left, so that she could pack up a few things
in the little bag and race to the station for the London train. She'd been so nervous, she hadn't eaten breakfast, and her stomach churned all the way to London. And there at the
station she'd met Joan, bought her a cup of tea, chatted with her all the way to the training camp in Devon. If she hadn't met Joan, would she really have gone through with it? Gone and
joined up, without telling Mummy and Pop? Or would she have flunked it, got scared and run home? She couldn't be sure. One thing was certain, it was knowing Joan, and meeting Bea, that got
her through that first week. She didn't have a clue about polishing shoes or peeling potatoes or mopping floors or even how to iron her own clothes. And now, here she was, four months on, and
she could do all of those things, and more. But back home everything was exactly as it was, like a museum to her girlhood. Her old knitted grey rabbit was on her pillow, and her nightie was folded
next to it. She went over to the bed and sat down. Outside in the garden the trees were just beginning to get leaves, a colourwash of mint over the spiky branches. The hedges all needed pruning and
there were piles of rotting leaves just left in drifts by the fence. Her eiderdown felt unbelievably soft compared to the scratchy blankets in the hut as she threw herself down on the bed. Maybe
Joan had the right idea. Maybe just a little nap?