ELIZABETH ELGIN
Turn Left at the
Daffodils

CONTENTS

Turn Left at the Daffodils

Elizabeth Elgin

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

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By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Turn Left At The
Daffodils

Elizabeth Elgin is the bestselling author of All the Sweet Promises, I’ll Bring You Buttercups, Daisychain Summer, Where Bluebells Chime, Windflower Wedding, One Summer at Deer’s Leap, The Willow Pool, A Scent of Lavender and The Linden Walk. She served in the WRNS during the Second World War and met her husband on board a submarine depot ship. She lived in the Vale of York until her death in 2005.

Elizabeth Elgin
29.08.1924

03.09.2005

To everyone involved in her publications and her many loyal and special readers, we thank you and hope you cherish this, her final book. Remember her with the love that she put into writing her novels. And, Mum, we hope the ending is as you planned it.

We love and miss you more than words can ever say.

George, Jane, David, Gillian, James, Simon, Matthew, Martin, Tom, Katie, Grace and ‘baby Bump’, Dominique, Becky, Ellen, Emma (Your ‘clan’).

O DEUS DA NOITE, BOA BLESS, SONHOS DOCES.

Dedication

To Betty’s second great-granddaughter Grace Mair Elizabeth Hall and her third great-grandchild “Baby” Cheetham, expected in January 2007. Also, to a very dear friend, Mrs Edna Parkinson.

One

May 1941

She brought the doorknocker down twice, then prayed with all her heart that Auntie Mim was in because if she wasn’t, Nan Morrissey was in deep trouble. And stranded in Leeds.

This morning, she had walked out of Cyprian Court in high old dudgeon; this morning, her suitcases had not seemed so heavy. Now, hungry and tired, she wondered if she had done the right thing – not for walking out on the Queer One and her Georgie – but because maybe she should have thought things out, first. Like how she would get from Liverpool to Leeds when there were few trains into or out of Liverpool, no trams running, and few buses able to get into the city centre. Because of the bombing, that was.

She closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Auntie Mim – please?’ then heard the blessed sound of door bolts being drawn back and the grating of a key in the lock.

‘Well, if it isn’t our Nan!’ Miriam Simpson snorted. ‘Left home, have you?’

‘Sort of.’ Tears of pure relief filled Nan’s eyes. Then she took a shuddering breath and said, ‘Chucked out, more like. Can I come in, please?’

‘And what have you done to make your dad throw you out?’ Arms folded firmly, Auntie Mim barred the doorway. ‘Got yourself into trouble, then?’

‘Me dad didn’t throw me out. He’s dead. Funeral two days ago.’ Her bottom lip trembled with genuine sorrow. ‘It was Her threw me out, and not because I’ve got myself into trouble, because I haven’t!’

‘Come on in then, Nan. I’m sorry about your dad.’ She really was. Will Morrissey had been decent to her sister. ‘Leave the cases in the lobby and sit yourself down. Heart attack, was it?’

‘No. Air Raid. He was on duty at the hospital and it got a direct hit. Them bluddy Jairmans! They’ve made a right mess of Liverpool – I had to get out. And I won’t be a bother, honest, if you’ll let me stay till I get myself sorted.’

‘Oh, all right. But I can’t feed you Nan, rationing being what it is, and I don’t allow swearing.’

‘Sorry. And it’s all right. I took my ration book when I left.’

Indeed, she had taken everything she thought to be legitimately hers. Food coupons, her identity card and the large brown envelope marked Marriage Lines, Birth Certificates, etc. in her mother’s handwriting. And her clothes. Mind, she wished she had left the brown envelope at the back of the drawer, now she knew what was inside it.

‘Had words with your stepmother, then?’ Miriam filled the kettle and set it to boil.

‘Suppose so. Dad ought never to have married her. I couldn’t stand her, and that brat. And she couldn’t stand me, either. She was weeping and moaning over Dad, like she was the only one who mattered. Not a thought for me losing my father. And then she said she’d have to be the wage-earner now, and that she’d be working full-time and I would have to look after Georgie. That’s how it all started.’

‘Because you said you wouldn’t?’

‘Not exactly. But I said I was sick of her kid. D’you know, he wouldn’t go to bed on his own and I had to go with him. At half-past six at night, would you believe? And he was three, and still in nappies, and he always has a snotty nose, an’ all,’ she added, when her aunt remained silent.

‘I told her! “I’m sick and fed up of that kid,” I said. “I’ve got my certificate from night school for touch-typing and I want to go to work.” And she said nobody would employ the likes of me what couldn’t speak proper, and if I wanted to stay in her house, I’d do as I was told if I knew what was good for me.’

‘So you upped and offed? And now I’m landed with you. Are you sure you’re not in trouble?’

‘Sure, Auntie Mim. Cross my heart and hope to die. And I won’t be stoppin’ for long. I’m joining up, see. The Army.’

‘Now what do you want to do a thing like that, for? And anyway, you aren’t old enough.’

‘I’m nearly eighteen and they take you at seventeen and a half. And why shouldn’t I join up? What could be worse than stoppin’ at Cyprian Court, now me dad’s gone?’

‘You’d have to take orders and salute people…’

‘So do all the women in the Forces. What’s so special about me?’

‘But what would you do, in the Army? You’ve had no education to speak of and you’ve never worked.’

‘I’ve got my typing certificate, and I haven’t worked because it suited Her to keep me at home for a dogsbody. Can’t you see, Auntie Mim, that I’d be the same as everybody else, once I’d joined up. Same uniform, the same pay. I’d be – well -normal.’

‘Oh, dear.’ Miriam Simpson felt sorry for her sister’s child, even though she had seen little of her these last few years. It couldn’t have been a lot of fun, losing a mother when you were a child, then getting a stepmother, a couple of years later – and one who took a bit of getting on with, if what she had heard was true. ‘I suppose you’re hungry? Get this tea down you, then I’ll do you a slice or two of toast and jam. All right?’

‘Smashing.’ Nan sipped the tea gratefully. ‘And I can pay me way, till the Army sends for me. I’ve got money in the Post Office.’

‘We’ll have to think about that. I’ve got a gentleman lodger, see. He’s something to do with aeroplane engines and he’s gone to Derby on a course for a month. He gives me a pound a week, but you can have his bed for ten shillings if you’ll help in the house and do a bit of queuing for me. I can’t say fairer than that.’

‘It’s a deal – and thanks. I won’t be any trouble, Auntie Mim.’

‘You better hadn’t be, or you’ll be on your way back to Liverpool before you can blink! And you’d better get yourself to the Food Office in the morning – see about an emergency card for your rations.’

‘I will.’ And look for the nearest recruiting office, because the sooner she got herself into uniform, the better. She would have to have a next-of-kin, of course. You always did when you joined up, but that was all right, because Auntie Mim was her next-of-kin, now.

She thought about it that night as she lay in the bed that was hers for four weeks. It struck her like a thunder clap. What if it took longer than that to get into the Army? Where would she go when the lodger came back? Cyprian Court, would it have to be, tail between her legs?

She pushed so terrible a thought from her mind, closed her eyes and thought instead about her father, wishing he could know she was going to be all right. Poor dad. He hadn’t had much of a life. Losing Mum, then getting himself saddled with the Queer One, and Georgie.

And thinking about Mum, what about that birth certificate? But she would worry about it tomorrow. Beautiful tomorrow, when she would present her touch-typing certificate to the Recruiting Officer. Bright, shining tomorrow, when her new life would begin.

May, without any doubt at all, was the most beautiful of months; a green, blossom-filled goodbye to winter; to short days and blackouts that came too early, and fogs and cold houses and everything that was depressing.

Caroline Tiptree leaned on the gate, gazing over the cow pasture to fields green with sprouting wheat, and hawthorn hedges coming to life again and the distant blue haze that carpeted Bluebell Wood.

So precious, this Yorkshire hamlet in which she lived; in which Englishmen had lived since Elizabeth Tudor’s time. So comforting to know that wars had come and gone, yet still Nether Hutton remained unchanged. Twenty-one houses, and all of them built of rose-red brick; all of them with flower-filled gardens; most of them with chimney stacks twisted like sticks of barley sugar. She turned to lean her back against the gate, reluctant to go home, to face the recriminations and tears she knew would follow. When she told her mother, that was.

Sighing, she made for Jackmans Cottage, named for the long-ago sea captain who had built it with a purse of gold, given by a grateful queen. A house with low, beamed ceilings and wide fireplaces and two kitchens and small windows. A thick-walled house that had not and would not change.

She closed the gate carefully behind her, standing for a moment to take in the courtyard garden thick with the flowers of late spring, for this was the picture she would carry away with her, if she left it. When she left it.

‘Hello, darling. You’ve missed the News,’ Janet Tiptree called from the sitting room.

‘Sorry.’ Carrie hung up her coat, knowing she’d had no intention of getting home to hear it. She’d had enough of gloom and doom, was fed up with the war and living in a rural backwater whilst everywhere else seemed to be getting bombed, and Dover shelled every single day from across the Channel. ‘Don’t suppose there was anything worth listening to – like Hitler wants an armistice…’

Or perhaps two ounces on the butter ration? She would settle for an ounce, even.

‘Don’t be flippant, Carrie. And why the badly-done-to look? Missing Jeffrey – is that it?’

‘Not particularly, mother. After all, he wanted to go.’

‘Which was sensible, really. Better to volunteer now for the Navy than wait another year to be called-up and put in the Army or the Air Force. Jeffrey’s uncle fought at Jutland, don’t forget and with a name like Frobisner – well, what else could he join? And you are missing him – admit it – or why are you acting like a bear with a sore head.’

‘My head is fine, mother. It’s my conscience I’m more bothered about. I’ve got to accept that working in a bank isn’t doing much for the war effort. I’m not pulling my weight.’

‘But you are!’ She patted the sofa beside her. ‘Now come and sit beside your mother, and tell her what’s wrong – have a little cuddle, shall we?’

‘Mother! I’m too old for cuddles. I’m twenty-one, soon, and I’m not doing enough. I’m having an easy war, and it isn’t right.’

‘Now you’re not to talk like that.’ Her mother was using her coaxing voice, her talking-to-awkward-daughters voice. ‘You have a job, you travel ten miles to work each day, and back, and two nights a week you fire watch for the ARP, leaving me all alone here. But do I complain?’

‘No.’

She said it snappily, because doing a clerk’s job did not seem at all like war work. The local bus picked her up at eight each morning and got her home by six forty-five each evening, and as for the fire-watching duties – well, there had been no fires; not even an air-raid warning, so what was so noble about that?

‘Why you and Jeffrey don’t fix a date, Carrie, is beyond me. I mean – you’d get a naval allowance and nobody could make you leave home if you were a married woman. Why all this soul searching? What’s brought it on, will you tell me?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me, if I did.’ She turned abruptly to stare out of the window.

‘Try me, dear. And please don’t turn your back when you speak to me.’

‘Sorry – and all right, if you must know…’ She went to sit beside her mother, then stared at the empty hearth. ‘What has brought it on? Seeing everything so beautiful, I suppose. Hutton in the spring and this lovely little village and – and the invasion. Because there’s going to be one, and I don’t want us to be invaded. All this is worth fighting for, mother.’

‘And Jeffrey has gone to fight for it. All the young men in the village, too. Nether Hutton is well represented.’

‘Y-yes…’ Her mother was right – except that there were only two young men of conscription age in the village. And herself, of course. ‘And it’s going to be better represented,’ she blurted, red-cheeked to the brass fender. ‘Because I’m going, as well. I’m going to join up.’

‘ Join up! I have never in all my life heard such nonsense! Have you forgotten your duty to me, Caroline?’

‘No. But I really am going. Into the Army.’

‘But you are all I have!’ Janet Tiptree jumped to her feet and began to pace the room. ‘Haven’t I suffered enough from war? Didn’t I lose your father to the Great War, and must I lose my only child to this one? Your father came home a sick man; came home to die of his war wounds and -’

‘And Todd’s father was killed, trying to get him out of No Man’s Land.’

‘Todd Coverdale? Why bring him into it after all these years?’

Her mother’s red cheeks and trembling mouth warned Carrie to have care, but still she said,

‘All these years? It’s not all that long since he left.’

‘And did you expect me to keep him out of a sense of duty?’ she demanded shrilly. ‘I couldn’t help it if his mother died. Your father, out of gratitude, told Marie Coverdale that she and her son would have a home here as long as she lived.’

‘Yes, and out of gratitude she worked in this house like a servant, almost, and – and -’

‘And Todd wanted for nothing. Even after your father died, I saw to it that nothing changed. They continued to live here and Todd went to Grammar School!’

‘He got a scholarship! Todd was like a brother to me, yet you sent him away, when his mother died.’

‘To his aunt, who was willing to have him. But why all this raking up of the past? You said nothing about his going, at the time. And we are talking about now, and you leaving home! What is to become of me, when you go – if you go.’

‘No ifs,’ Caroline said softly, gently. ‘If I pass the medical, I’m going. And it isn’t a question of duty, either to you or to this country. I’m joining up because I want to; because something is telling me I must. Can’t you understand? Can’t you, for once, think of something other than yourself?’

‘Well, now I know you have taken leave of your senses! Me – selfish.’ The tears left Janet Tiptree’s eyes, her jaw hardened. ‘Me, who has been father and mother to you, thinks only of myself? Shame on you Caroline. Don’t make me more upset than I already am! I suggest you go to bed, and wake up tomorrow in a better frame of mind. And apologise for the things you have said!’

‘No thank you. I am well past the age of being sent early to bed. But I am sorry if I have hurt you, if I seem ungrateful for all you have done for me. And I am sorry for your loneliness over the years, but please stop treating me like a child?’

‘Then stop behaving like one and remember where your duty lies. And I have nothing more to say. I shall go to bed. I have a migraine coming on. Will it be too much to ask that you bring me up a hot drink, and an aspirin?’

She opened the staircase door and without a goodnight, walked sighing to her room…

‘Oh, lordy!’ Carrie whispered when she heard the banging of the bedroom door.

It had been exactly as she thought: the pleading, tears and recriminations. It always was, when her mother wanted her own way. Sometimes her mother had a hard heart, inside that sweet exterior. It was sad she was a widow, but the Great War had left behind many widows – Todd’s mother for one, whose husband had crawled into the void between the trenches. Todd’s father had been shot by a sniper as he dragged his wounded officer to safety.

Mind, her father had been grateful; given his word that widow and son should be cared for. And her mother accepted it, because she always took the least line of resistance – and because it suited her to have unpaid help in the house.

Carrie looked at herself in the wall mirror; gazed unblinking so her resolve should not weaken, because there was something else her mother wouldn’t like, if ever she found out.

Fix a date for the wedding? Not yet. Because Jeffrey had shocked her, shown a side to his nature she had not known to exist, and she had not liked it. She recalled his mouth, sensuously pouted, his eyes narrowed so he need not look at her and his mouth, wet on hers.

‘I’m going to the war, Carrie,’ he had said, ‘and if you loved me, you’d let me. We’re engaged, after all. Where’s the harm in it? And anyway, you can’t get pregnant the first time.’

So she had let him; had lain there unresisting, eyes fixed on the ceiling whilst he pushed and grunted and shoved.

‘Told you it’d be all right, didn’t I?’ He had nuzzled her neck when it was over, then slid off the bed and pulled on his trousers. ‘And it’ll be better, next time.’

Next time, thank heaven, was at least three months away, and by next time she could well be out of reach. And she didn’t want there to be a next time. Not yet. Not until she could talk to Jeffrey about her fears, her feelings, because if that was what doing it was like, then she had got it all wrong.

She shrugged and walked to the window, arms folded tightly around her, mouth stubborn, gazing as twilight touched the garden, muting colours, softening outlines.

The wood pigeon that nested in the tree in the lane outside flew past her line of vision, alighting atop the wall, cooing and burbling. It waddled, pecking, then flapped up to its nest. Poor silly, fortunate bird. It didn’t even know there was a war on.

But there was a war on and she was going to join it, and not all her mother’s tears would stop her. Soon, she would have to register for war service so why not choose, as Jeffrey had done, what she would do and in which arm of the Forces. Army, Air Force, Navy – did it matter? Could anything be worse than remaining in Nether Hutton, a dutiful daughter, waiting for Jeffrey to come home on leave from the Navy and marry her, just because that was what everyone expected them to do?

She wished she could talk to her mother about what happened that night she had gone out to play whist and left them alone together. Yet she knew she could not, must not.

She slid home the door bolts and turned the key in the lock. Then she pulled the blackout curtains across the window and went to the kitchen.

A hot drink for her mother, and two aspirins. A little honey in the milk and a glass of water for the tablets. A dutiful daughter again, who would one day be a dutiful wife to Jeffrey.

But not on his first leave. Only when she was ready to be a wife. And on this heart-achingly beautiful May evening, she was not.

‘Sorry, mother,’ she whispered to the honey jar. ‘I’ve got to have time to sort out my life my own way. And sorry, Jeffrey. I will marry you, but not just yet; not until we have talked.’ Because something so very important could not be open to doubt, or left to chance.

And tomorrow, no matter what her mother said or threatened, she would go to the recruiting office. She had to.

‘Let’s check to see if we’ve got it right,’ the ATS corporal in the Recruiting Office said. ‘Nancy Morrissey, of 16 Farthing Street, Leeds. Date of birth November 22, 1924. And you wish, if you pass the medical examination, to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service – right?’

‘Right,’ Nan said, just a little chokily. ‘And I want to be a typist.’ She took the folded piece of paper from her handbag. ‘Got a certificate…’

‘That won’t be necessary, at this stage. If you pass, you’ll be given an intelligence test,’ the corporal smiled.

She had a nice smile, Nan thought; had a ring on her engagement finger, too.

‘I – I wouldn’t like to be a domestic,’ she breathed. ‘I want sumthin’ better than bein’ an orderly.’

‘An orderly is not to be looked down upon,’ the corporal reproved. ‘You will be wearing the King’s uniform – something to be proud of, whatever job you do. Oh, and your next-of-kin…?’

‘That’s me Auntie Mim – Mrs Miriam Simpson, 16 Farthing Street, Leeds. I’m living with her, now, ’cause we was bombed in Liverpool.’ No need to mention her stepmother. ‘Me dad was killed when they bombed the hospital. I hate them Nazis, rot their socks!’

‘Rot their socks indeed.’ The corporal raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m from London – East End.’

‘Aaah,’ Nan nodded, a bond between them established. ‘And I’d like to get in as soon as possible. Auntie Mim can only let me stay for four weeks, see?’

‘I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything.’ She handed back the identity card and ration book Nan had offered in lieu of her birth certificate. ‘Farthing Street is your permanent address as from now?’

‘For four weeks, till the lodger comes back. After that, I can’t say. That’s why I want in quick.’

‘I’ll add a note. Your medical will be at Albion Street, here in Leeds, so that’ll be handy. I don’t suppose you and I will meet again, Miss Morrissey, so good luck.’

‘Thanks. Do you like bein’ in the ATS Miss -er – Corporal?’

‘Yes, I do. Very much.’ She rose to her feet.

‘Ta-ra, then – and thanks.’ Nan pushed back her chair. The interview, she realized, was over. She was in the ATS – if she passed the medical, that was. No going back, now. ‘And you won’t forget to add the note?’

‘I won’t.’

Shakily, Nan made her way to the street outside, blinking in the bright sunlight. Shakily, because it wasn’t every day you did something as mind-boggling as joining the Army.

She looked at the clock above the Market Hall. Eleven, exactly, which meant that in the span of two hours, she had changed the address on her ration book and identity card from Cyprian Court, Liverpool, to Farthing Street, Leeds; had obtained an emergency card for two weeks’ food and offered herself to the Auxiliary Territorial Service for the duration of hostilities. Strange that only yesterday she had walked out on her old life for ever, and if she didn’t get into the Army, heaven only knew what she would do, or where she would go. But she had learned, in her nearly eighteen years, not to look for trouble and anyway, nothing could be worse than being at Cyprian Court with her stepmother and her Georgie. Now dad had gone, there was nothing at all to keep her in Liverpool and if Nan Morrissey had anything to do with it, she would never go back there!

She crossed the road to the Market Hall, in search of a queue. Queuing was part of daily life, now. You saw a long line of patiently waiting women, then hopefully joined on the end of it.

‘What’s it for?’ she asked of the woman in front of her.

‘Fish.’ The reply was brief. Usually people talked to you in queues, but the one in front didn’t seem to want to gossip. Nan turned to the woman behind her.

‘Fish,’ she beamed. ‘Fingers crossed, eh?’

Carrie folded the greaseproof paper in which her sandwiches had been wrapped and put it in her handbag. Paper was in short supply, so you used it again and again. She had made her own sandwiches this morning, her mother’s bedroom door being firmly closed, with no answer to her knock and her whispered, ‘Tea, mother?’

Janet Tiptree, it would seem, was still asleep, though the minute the bus left the village, Carrie was as sure as she could be that she would be out of bed and downstairs before the teapot had time to get cold.

Carrie brushed the crumbs from her knees and stuck out her chin. Today, in her dinner hour, she had resolved to go to the recruiting office and there must be no going back, now. A short walk would take her there, after which heaven only knew what would happen…

Yet that was the way she wanted it, and if her mother tried to block her way by refusing her consent, she would try again after her twenty-first birthday. But she was going. Somewhere. Some place out of her mother’s reach to do what Caroline Tiptree wanted – needed – to do.

All she knew – really knew – at this moment was that there was a war on and it was going to last for years and years. Longer than the last one, some said. It was a terrible thought but if, by joining the Armed Forces, her small effort could shorten that war by just one day, then she had to do it, no matter what her mother said. Or Jeffrey, for that matter.

The door of the Recruiting Office was wide open, the room inside bare and empty except for a row of wooden chairs and a desk behind which sat an ATS sergeant.

‘Er – hello,’ Carrie whispered.

‘Hello,’ the sergeant smiled. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes please.’ She was surprised her voice should sound so croaky.

‘Then take a pew.’ The sergeant was still smiling.

‘That was a lovely supper, Auntie Mim.’ Nan wiped dry the pan she had just scrubbed.

‘Good of you to get the fish.’

It had been a very small piece of haddock, but her aunt had made it into fishcakes, followed by bread and butter pudding, conjured up from a little milk, the egg from Nan’s ration card, the remains of a loaf and two precious prunes, chopped into tiny pieces to resemble currants.

‘And good of you, lass, to help with the washing up.’

‘Think nothing of it.’ Nan had done all the dish-washing and pan-scrubbing at Cyprian Court, with never a word of thanks. She settled herself in the kitchen rocker, pink-cheeked at the compliment.

Miriam Simpson took out her knitting. It was all very cosy, Nan was bound to admit; like it would have been at Cyprian Court if Mum hadn’t died. She wondered if the Queer One was having trouble getting Georgie to go to bed on his own, and hoped he was being a right little sod. She waited until her aunt had finished counting stitches, then said,

‘There’s something I want to ask you – about Mum and Dad…Did they have to get married?’ The words came out in a rush.

‘Nobody has to do anything, lass – but what made you ask? I thought you’d have known.’

‘Well, I didn’t. Not till yesterday. They were married three months before I was born. It was a shock, I can tell you.’

‘Does it matter when? You were born in wedlock. That’s all that need concern you.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t think dad was the sort to get a girl into trouble, then take six months to make an honest woman of her. I thought better about him than that, if you must know.’

‘Oh dearie me.’ Miriam laid her knitting on her lap, then folded her hands over it, staring into the empty fire grate. ‘Now see here Nan, you’re almost a grown up and for better or for worse, you’ve decided to branch out on your own and join the Army. So I reckon you should know the truth of it, because I don’t want you to think ill of your father – and that was what he became, the minute he married your mother.’

‘Became?’ Nan whispered.

‘That’s right. Will Morrissey had always cared for your mother – was willing to wed her. He gave you his name, and you should be thankful for it.’

‘So am I to be told who my real father was?’ Nan’s heart thudded, her mouth so dry it was difficult to speak.

‘No you aren’t, because we never knew. Your mother refused to tell anyone, even Will, who’d been decent enough to marry her. All I know was that she went to her wedding with a hundred pounds in her pocket and a house full of furniture. She was lucky. A lot of women in her predicament got nothing!’

‘Ar.’ Still dazed, Nan filled a glass at the kitchen tap and drank deeply. ‘A hundred pounds was a lot of money in them days.’

‘It still is. Whoever it was fathered you, Nan, was of moneyed folk.’

‘And where was Mum when it – when I happened?’

‘Working for a ship-owning family in Liverpool. She was a sort of companion-help to the old mother, I believe. Didn’t you know?’

She hadn’t known, but it all added up Nan thought, wiping the glass, returning it to the shelf. A hundred pounds and enough furniture to fill the house in Cyprian Court would mean nothing to the likes of them.

‘And nobody ever found out?’ she persisted.

‘No. Your mother could be the stubborn one. Why she had to go to Liverpool to work, heaven only knows. You’re like her, Nan. Rushing off to join the Army, I mean.’

‘But I was never like her in looks, Auntie Mim.’

‘True. You must’ve favoured your – the other side. Your mother was fair, as well you know.’

Her sister’s child, Miriam pondered, had very little to commend her. If you wanted to be brutal, Nan was very ordinary, but for one thing. She had the most beautiful brown eyes, and lashes so long a film star would have killed for them. Those eyes lifted her out of the ordinary.

‘So I won’t ever know?’

‘Not from me, Nan, and not from poor Will, who knew nothing, anyway. You’ll just have to accept – well – that -’

‘That I’m illegitimate. A bastard.’

‘Now that’s enough! Whilst you are under my roof, miss, you will not use bad language. And you are not one of those! You were born in wedlock, so that makes you legitimate – in the eyes of the law, anyway!’

‘So my mother wasn’t good enough for my real father – is that it?’

‘I don’t know, I swear it, Nan, so the whole thing is best forgotten.’

‘So if I hadn’t asked about my birth certificate, would you have told me, Auntie Mim?’

‘No. Don’t think I would’ve, if only out of respect for your father – for Will. He was a decent man.’

‘He was. Did any job he could lay his hand to; never had reg’lar work, till the war started. That was when he got a porter’s job at the hospital. That’s why he was killed that night, him and sixty others. I hate Hitler. And I’m sorry I thought wrong about Dad.’

‘Then as long as you think of him as your dad like he intended, I know he’ll forgive you. So how about putting the kettle on? I reckon we deserve a cup of tea after all that soul-searching. Only the little pot – and don’t go mad with the tea leaves.’

Indiscriminate tea drinking was not to be encouraged on the miserly rations folk had to make do with, but tonight it was medicinal, Miriam Simpson decided.

Nan lit the gas with a plop and put the kettle to boil, busying herself with cups and saucers and all the time thinking about that birth certificate and being stupid enough to land herself with another worry. Because being illegitimate was a worry, no matter which way her aunt put it.

‘Y’know – it’s like I said. Once I’m in uniform I’ll be the same as all the others, won’t I?’

‘You will, so don’t be going on about it. None of it was your fault.’ She picked up her knitting. ‘New beginnings for you, that’s what it’ll be. And shift yourself with that tea, lass!’

‘Mother?’ Hesitantly, Carrie Tiptree pushed open the kitchen door. ‘My, but something smells good.’

‘Very little meat and lots of onions.’ She said it without glancing up from the pan she was stirring.

‘Can’t wait. I’m ravenous. Any letters for me?’ She was amazed her voice sounded so normal.

‘There was nothing from Jeffrey, if that’s what you mean, Caroline. But I wrote to him today. I mean, someone has to tell him what you’re thinking of doing. He’s your fiancé – he has a right to know!’

‘But don’t you think you should have let me tell him? And yes, he is my fiancé, but he can’t forbid me to do anything. Not yet. And why is it so awful to think about joining up? Is it wrong, mother, to be patriotic?’

‘Patriotism is all very well, but it didn’t do a lot for your poor father, did it? But I don’t want to talk about it. I had my say last night and I won’t budge. You’re still a minor and I won’t give my permission for you to go.’

‘All right, then. But please, let’s not you and I quarrel. I’m sorry if I have upset you.’

‘Oh, I know you are, darling.’ Janet Tiptree was magnanimous in victory. ‘Just wait till the Government sends for you, eh? After all, you might well be married before your age group comes up for registration and married women can’t be made to do war work.’

‘They can, mother, but they can’t be made to leave home. But I’m going upstairs to take my shoes off. I had to stand all the way home on the bus, and my feet hurt.’

‘Do that dear, and wash your hands. I’m going to dish up, now. And try to understand that I only want what is best for you? You are all I have in the world. Don’t leave me just yet?’

‘I won’t. Not just yet…’ she called.

She took off her shoes and placed them neatly beneath her bedside chair, took off her stockings and wriggled her feet into her slippers. Then she went to the wash basin in the corner of the room and stared into the mirror.

Later, she would tell her mother. She would have to, because she had done something so deceitful that now, when she thought about it, for a few fleeting seconds she wished she had not done it.

But she had done it, and anyway, she shrugged, by the time the ATS got around to sending for her, she would be as near to twenty-one as made no matter, so why was she having second thoughts?

At lunchtime, at the recruiting office, she had had no doubts at all; not until the sergeant had handed back her application form.

‘You will, of course, have to get this countersigned by your next-of-kin. I know you will soon be of age, but it’s best that you do. Just in case we are able to process you fairly quickly, I mean.’

‘H-how quickly,’ Carrie had asked.

‘W-e-e-ll, you did say you can drive and we are recruiting drivers as a matter of priority. That is why we need your father’s signature. Is there anything to prevent you joining within a couple of months, say? Always provided you are medically fit, that is.’

‘N-no. Nothing. And my mother is my next-of-kin.’

‘So take this form home, get her to sign and date it, then post it back to us. I’ll give you an envelope – OK?’

And Caroline Tiptree, of the glib tongue and unflinching gaze, had said that would be fine, and tucked it into her handbag and smiled a goodbye, even though it made her heart thud just to think of what she would do.

Mind, it had taken a little courage, when she got back to the bank, to borrow a colleague’s fountain pen and write Janet L. Tiptree (Mother) beside her own signature, then add the date -13.5.41. And she had slipped out and posted it in the pillar box outside the bank, just in case she had second thoughts.

‘And that,’ she whispered to her flush-faced mirror image, ‘is that.’

No going back, now. The buff envelope with On His Majesty’s Service printed across the top, was already on its way and Caroline Tiptree was a step nearer to joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

Now, there was only her mother to tell – and Jeffrey, of course – and that, she thought as she washed and dried her hands, was going to take some doing.

Oh, my word, yes!

Two

Life at Farthing Street could be a whole lot worse Nan was bound to admit, especially since her aunt managed to put a reasonable meal on the table most days.

‘Filling if not fattening,’ she had said of the Woolton pie they ate for supper that evening, made entirely of unrationed ingredients. Packed with vegetables, topped with a crust made from the piece of suet Nan had queued for at the butcher’s on the corner, and moistened with gravy made from an Oxo cube, it was a triumph of ingenuity.

To Miriam Simpson’s delight, Nan was very successful in queues. Since they had decided it wasn’t worth her while looking for a job – for who would employ a young woman, knowing she was soon to be called into the Armed Forces? -she was free to hunt for under-the-counter food. It saved Miriam’s feet and helped pass the days which Nan mentally ticked off as one nearer her entry into the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

‘Shall we have fish and chips tomorrow,’ she asked. ‘I’ll get there good and early.’

Neither fish nor chips were rationed. The government, in one of its wiser moments, had seen to it that they remained so. A housewife who once would never have dreamed of entering a fried fish and chip shop, now queued eagerly for them, especially on Fridays, when rations were running low.

‘And you can go to the butcher’s on Saturday, Nan.’ Her niece did far better out of the old skinflint than she had ever done, especially in the under-the-counter suet and sausages department. It was probably, she thought, because the girl looked at him with her big eyes, then fluttered those eyelashes for good measure. ‘Tell him that anything at all would be much appreciated.’

‘A leg of lamb?’ Nan giggled, to which her aunt replied that she had just seen a purple pig fly past the top of the street! Legs of lamb, indeed!

‘When do you think you’ll hear from the ATS, then?’

‘Dunno, Auntie Mim. Once I’ve had my medical, they might send for me pretty sharpish. I asked the corporal to do what she could for me. Fingers crossed there’ll be a letter in the morning.’ A buff envelope with no stamp on it, and O H M S printed across the top.

She switched on the wireless, settling herself in the fireside rocker, tapping her toes in time to the dance music, thinking that if she wasn’t so set on joining the Army and Auntie Mim had a spare bed, of course, Farthing Street would have suited her nicely for the duration.

Oh, hurry up buff envelope, do!

On Saturday night, the telephone in Jackmans Cottage rang.

‘It’s for you.’ Janet Tiptree, who always picked up the phone, handed it to her daughter. ‘Jeffrey,’ she mouthed.

‘Darling,’ Carrie whispered, startled. ‘How lovely of you to –’

‘Caroline – listen! I’ve been hanging about outside the phonebox for ages waiting for this call to come through and we only have three minutes, so what are you thinking about, joining up! If you must do something so stupid, why not join the Wrens? And why did I have to hear it from your mother? Surely I merit some consideration?’

There was a small uneasy silence that seemed to last an age, then she said,

‘I – I – well, I was going to tell you Jeffrey and anyway, nothing is settled, yet.’

‘I should damn well hope not. We’re supposed to be getting married when I’ve finished my training – well, aren’t we?’

‘Y-yes,’ was all she could say, because she could hear his angry breathing and besides, there wasn’t a lot she could say to the contrary in three minutes. ‘But please don’t speak to me like that? And I’m sorry you are upset. I’ll write, shall I? A nice long letter…?’

‘The only letter I want from you is telling me you’ve forgotten all about the ATS. Did you have a brainstorm, or something?’

‘N-no!’ Oh, why did she let him boss her around so? ‘And thank you for ringing, Jeffrey,’ she hastened when the warning pips pinged stridently in her ear. ‘Take care of yourself. I’ll write. Tonight.’

The line went dead, then began to buzz. She looked angrily at the receiver, then slammed it down.

‘So? Your young man wasn’t best pleased?’ Janet Tiptree said softly, smugly.

‘No, he wasn’t. He yelled at me! How dare he! And you shouldn’t have told him, mother. It wasn’t up to you, you know!’

‘Maybe not, but someone had to. Perhaps now you’ll give a bit more thought to your wedding! You are engaged, or had you forgotten?’

‘Of course I hadn’t!’ Being engaged, surely, was something you didn’t forget, especially when you wore a ring on your left hand. ‘Jeffrey and I will be married.’

They would. It was what getting engaged was about. But not just yet. Or would he bluster and bluff and demand, as he did the night her mother was out and they had done – that? She hadn’t wanted to and it mustn’t happen again, or next time she might get pregnant and her mother would have every excuse, then, to get them down the aisle at breakneck speed.

‘Ah, yes.’ Her mother interrupted her thoughts. ‘But when?

‘When the war allows,’ Carrie answered cagily, which was true, really, because now her war had to be taken into consideration.

She closed her eyes, wondering how she would face her mother when the letter telling her to report for her medical arrived; wondered, too, how she was to explain the forged signature on the bottom of her application form.

‘Are we going to listen to the news, mother? Shall I switch on? It’s nearly nine o’clock.’

It was all she could think of to say, dammit!

On May 24th, the newsreader announced in a graver than usual voice that HMS Hood, the biggest and fastest ship in the Royal Navy, had been sunk by the German battleship Bismarck, and only three from a crew of almost fifteen hundred had survived.

It was as if, Nan frowned, Hitler’s lot could do what they wanted, even at sea. The Hood had been sunk, the morning paper reported, by one chance shell landing in the ship’s magazine. Dead lucky, them Jairmans!

She rounded her mouth and slammed down her feet. She was on her way to the medical centre in Albion Street, and the sooner they pronounced her A1 fit, the sooner she would be in uniform, because this morning’s terrible news made her all the more sure it was what she must do.

She pushed open the door. There was brown linoleum on the floor; the walls were green-painted. The place smelled of damp and disinfectant.

Nan was pointed to a cubicle, told to undress to the waist, put on the white cotton smock and wait to be called.

Someone examined her mouth and muttered, ‘Two cavities,’ and Nan was as sure as she could be that that meant fillings. She had never had fillings. Just to think of them made her flinch, because she had heard they were excruciatingly painful.

A doctor listened to her chest, counted her pulse rate, made muttered asides to the clerk beside him who wrote on a notepad.

She was told to get dressed again, hang the white cotton smock on the hook in the cubicle, then follow the nurse to the ablutions, where there were more cubicles.

‘Please give a urine sample. In this.’ A kidney dish was thrust at each young woman. ‘Then you transfer it into this.’ A small, wide-necked bottle. ‘And try not to spill it on the floor. When you have provided your sample, you will take it to the desk, give it, together with your surname and initial, to the nurse there, and she will attach a label to the bottle. Oh, hurry along, do!’

Some looked shocked. Others giggled. A few blushed. Nan thought it was a lot of fuss over a bottle of wee, but she supposed they knew what they were doing.

‘There was one girl there who couldn’t do it, so they stood her in front of a running cold water tap, but it made no difference,’ Nan told Auntie Mim that evening. ‘She’s got to go back tomorrow and have another try, poor thing.’

‘And do you think you have passed?’

‘I reckon so. They said if we weren’t told to report back within three days, we could take it that we were OK, so it’s fingers crossed.’

‘And you still want to go, Nan?’

‘Yes, I do. Let’s hope I’m on my way before your lodger comes back.’

‘You’ll have to sleep on the sofa in the parlour if you aren’t, young woman.’

Nan hoped she would be in uniform before then. The parlour sofa was hard and stuffed with horsehair.

‘Can we run to a cup of tea?’ she asked. ‘In celebration, sort of, of me bein’ half way there.’

‘We’ve been having too many cups of tea lately, miss. But there’s cocoa on the shelf, if you fancy that. And make it with dried milk.’ Cocoa was unrationed when you could get it, as was powdered milk, in a blue metallic tin. ‘Can’t get those sailors on HMS Hood out of my mind,’ she whispered, picking up her knitting which usually soothed her. ‘There’ll be all those women getting telegrams, poor souls.’

‘Yes, but I’ll bet you anything you like that Winston Churchill’s fightin’ mad. I’ll bet he’s rung them up at the Admiralty, and told them to get that bluddy Bismarck!’

‘I hope he has, and I hope they do,’ Miriam said without even reminding her niece that swearing was not allowed at Number 16. ‘Sink it before it can get back into port!’

And could they have known it, the entire North Atlantic fleet was already hunting, enraged, for the German ship, and before four more days had run, Bismarck would be sunk. An eye for an eye, people would say it was.

Four days later, Caroline Tiptree picked up the letters that fell on the doormat at Jackmans Cottage.

‘Post,’ she called, chokily, pushing a buff OHMS envelope into her coat pocket. ‘Only one. For you, mother.’

Then she ran up the garden path and down the road to the bus stop, all at once apprehensive. Because the buff OHMS envelope could mean only one thing.

She collapsed on the wooden seat in the bus shelter, asking herself if joining the ATS was such a good idea after all, and knowing there was nothing she could do now, except fail the medical. Which she wouldn’t.

She rose shakily to her feet as the bright red bus rounded the corner, wondering where she would be in August when Jeffrey came on leave and praying that it was miles and miles from Nether Hutton.

But it wasn’t August she should be worrying about, was it? It was when she must tell her mother about the buff OHMS envelope. Not tonight, of course. Afterwards, perhaps, when she knew she was medically fit, or perhaps when her calling-up papers came would be the best time, because then her mother wouldn’t be able to do anything about the forged signature.

But what had she done? What had made her do such a thing when she knew that soon, anyway, she would have to register for military service? Couldn’t she have waited just a few more months?

‘No, Caroline Tiptree, you could not,’ whispered the small voice of reason in her ear. ‘You know that if you are around when Jeffrey comes home in August, your mother will have arranged a wedding, and you will go along with it as you always do!’

But not any longer! Oh, she loved Jeffrey and there would be a wedding, nothing was more certain. But when the time came it would be she, Caroline, who would name the day.

Sorry, mother, she said in her mind, I have done the most awful, deceitful thing, and you’ll have every right to hit the roof when you find out about it.

And sorry, Jeffrey, too, but just this once I was doing what I want to do. How it would turn out she dare not think, and what Nether Hutton would make of her slipping away to be an ATS girl would take a bit of facing up to, as well. Little villages were like that. People knew everyone, and their ancestry, too. What The Village thought was very important, and Mrs Frobisher – as well as her own mother – had left people in Nether Hutton in no doubt that a wedding was in the offing, just as soon as the Royal Navy allowed.

She handed a florin to the conductress, said ‘One-and-three return, please,’ then stared fixedly out of the window to wonder, yet again, where she would be in mid-August? In uniform, perhaps? Or if she were lucky, driving an Army truck? And thinking about the fuss and bother at Jackmans Cottage there had been when her deceit came to light.

The bus stopped at the crossroads and the young woman who always got on smiled and said ‘Morning,’ as she usually did, then sat down beside her. The buff OHMS envelope was still in Carrie’s pocket. No chance of opening it, now, thanks be.

‘Mm,’ she smiled back. ‘Looks like being a lovely day…’

Which was, of course, the understatement of the week!

Three

On the day the buff OHMS envelope arrived, it lay unopened in Carrie’s jacket pocket until ten that morning. Medical in four days’ time she read, dry-mouthed, in the privacy of the ladies’ lavatory. Friday, May 30 at 12.30. And since her lunch hour began at 12.15, it would save the embarrassment of having to ask the head cashier for an hour off work, and being obliged to tell him why she wanted it! She had wondered where she would be when Jeffrey’s leave began some time in August, and now she knew.

The time – ten days from the end of her initial training as a motor transport driver; the place – with the Royal Army Service Corps, somewhere in Wiltshire, and new recruit though she had been, she knew better than to ask for compassionate leave. You only got compassionate when it concerned husbands, or already-arranged weddings. You did not get it, especially in the middle of a training course, for a fiancé or wedding dates that might have been!

There had been a hurt letter from her mother and another from Jeffrey, telling her that the entire village was talking about her behaviour and asking were they or were they not supposed to be getting married? But distance gave her courage and she had replied in sweet relief, telling him that next time she was sure they could both come up with a date to suit everyone – and that she loved him, of course.

So now, on this last-day-but-one of August she stood in Lincoln station, kitbag beside her, respirator over her shoulder and with her, three equally curious ATS privates and a lance corporal. They had met up on the platform. Draft HP4. Report to the RTO on arrival at Lincoln, said their travel instructions.

There was a Railway Transport Office on all main railway stations, their purpose to aid the passage of servicemen and women and goods of military importance from Point A to Point B

‘I think I’ll see the bod in the RTO,’ said the lance corporal, who had quickly ascertained she was the only one with rank up, and even one stripe entitled her to take charge. ‘They’ll know where we go from here.’

She had quickly returned.

‘He says he hasn’t a clue where HP4 is. All he said was, “Oh. So you’ll be one of them…”’

He had settled his pencil behind his right ear and pulled out a list from beneath a pile of timetables.

‘All he knew, he said, was that he was expecting a draft of five, and when we’d all arrived he had a number to ring, so we could be collected. And he said to nip out smartly, because the WVS trolley was expected any time now and we were to get ourselves a cup of tea. We might be in for a long wait, he said.’

It was almost an hour after they had eaten beetroot sandwiches and drunk large mugs of tea -offered with the most kindly smiles – that an Army corporal, the stripes on his arms brilliantly white with Blanco, clumped past them and into the RTO, then clumped out almost at once, to confront the group.

‘Draft HP4, are you? Let’s be seeing your warrants, then!’

‘Where are we going?’ the lance-corporal wanted to know.

‘That, young lady, is not for you to ask, not with one stripe up it isn’t. So let’s be having you. There’s a transport outside, so collect your kit and get on board. The sooner we get going the sooner you’ll know, won’t you?’ he said with the satisfaction of someone who knew something they did not. ‘And you’re in for the shock of your lives,’ he added.

They sat on low wooden benches in the back of the Army lorry, holding tightly to the metal struts supporting the camouflaged canvas roof and had soon left Lincoln behind. Now they drove through open country with hedges and pastures and fields yellow with the stubble of newly-harvested wheat and barley.

Carrie gazed out over the tailboard to see flat countryside and a wide, open sky. Farming country, this, and not unlike the fields around Nether Hutton. She steadied herself as the lorry braked suddenly.

‘Hang on!’ called the driver, swinging into a narrow lane. ‘Nearly there now, girls.’

They dropped speed and climbed a small hill. Ahead was a wood and a church; to their right a gate lodge outside which a sergeant waved her arms. They stopped with a skidding squeal, then reversed.

‘How-do, sergeant. Got a load of trouble for you!’

‘Have you now!’ She stood, hands on hips, glaring into the back of the transport. Wide-eyed, draft HP4 stared back.

‘Right, then! I am Sergeant James.’ She consulted a pencilled list. ‘Tiptree, Morrissey and Lance-Corporal Turner, stay where you are. The other two follow me. This is your billet – for the time being. It’s called Priest’s Lodge and don’t take the downstairs front – that’s mine. If you shift yourselves and get settled in, you just might be in time for supper. Hang on a minute,’ she called to the driver. ‘Won’t be long.’

Five minutes later, she swung herself into the back of the transport with the ease of an acrobat.

‘OK, driver. Southgate Lodge!’

They bumped downhill and stopped at an even smaller lodge, standing beside gateposts of stone. It was pretty and ornate and everything the private with the Liverpool accent had ever imagined a country cottage to be. Roses grew around the door; late-flowering honeysuckle wound itself around iron railings.

‘Ar – innit a lovely diddy house.’

‘It’s sort of – cute,’ the lance-corporal was forced to admit. ‘Haven’t ever had a billet like this, before.’

‘Diddy, cute – well, don’t get too fond of it,’ the sergeant snapped.

‘With luck you’ll be in a Nissen hut before so very much longer – where I can keep an eye on the lot of you!’

Instead of, she thought grimly, spread all over the place and out of her reach!

‘Now – this is Southgate Lodge. Up that drive is none of our business, because up that drive leads to Heronflete Priory. The lane to your right takes you to the QM stores, the NAAFI, the cookhouse, the mess hall and the ablutions. Supper at six, then muster immediately after, so unpack your kit and have everything ready in case I decide on an inspection – OK?’

And with that she strode away, arms swinging, heels hitting the ground purposefully, sending dust flying.

‘I think,’ smiled the lance-corporal, ‘that Sergeant James isn’t very happy with the way things are here. And I’m Evelyn Turner, SBO-tele-phones. Evie.’

‘And I’m Nan Morrissey, teleprinters. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.’

‘Caroline Tiptree, driver. Call me Carrie.’

‘Fine! So shall we take a look?’

The squat front door opened directly onto a small room. On two walls were leaded windows; on another, a fireplace. And taking up most of the space were two black iron beds and two brand-new lockers.

Evie opened a door to her left to find an even smaller room with one window, one black iron bed and one brand-new locker.

‘Looks like this one will suit me nicely. You two can kip together. And I get first choice because this,’ she pointed to the stripe on her arm, ‘says that just sometimes I can pull rank!’ She took off her cap and jacket and laid them on the bed. ‘Now – what else have we got?’

A low door led into a very small kitchen. It had two shelves, a corner cupboard and a white sink with a single tap, which she turned. At least there was water.

‘Let’s do a reccy outside.’

At the bottom of a small garden, overgrown with grass and brambles, were two brick sheds. One housed a water closet, the slab floor thick with dead leaves. She pulled the rusted chain and water gushed from the cistern.

‘Good grief,’ Carrie breathed. ‘All mod cons.’

‘At least it works,’ said Nan who was used, anyway, to having an outside toilet.

‘I think, though,’ Caroline frowned, ‘that we’ll be expected to use the ablutions up the lane.’

‘Yes, but this one will be smashin’ for emergencies. I mean, are we expected to hike up that lane for a wee in the blackout an’ all, in winter?’

‘I don’t think we’ll be here, Nan. We’ll be moved to a hut before so very much longer, if the sergeant gets her way.’ Evie pushed open the second door.

It was a coalhouse. In one corner was a pile of logs; in the other, a small heap of coal. A bow saw hung on the wall, a bucket and shovel beneath it. On a shelf, a clutter of dusty jam jars.

‘Hey up! There’s a fireplace in our room,’ Nan beamed. ‘Reckon we’ll be able to have a bit of warmth when the weather gets cold. Will we be allowed to, Evie?’

‘Don’t know, but don’t get too fond of this billet. By the time the cold weather comes we could be in a Nissen hut with a coke stove, if we’re lucky.’

‘Well, I’d rather stay where we are, stove or not,’ Carrie sighed. ‘Southgate Lodge is a lovely little place.’

‘Then let’s wait and see. And don’t say anything about the coal and logs, or someone will have them carted off sharpish!’ Evie said, with a year’s knowledge of Army life behind her. ‘And I think we’d better unpack and make up our beds. We’ve got an hour…’

* * *

‘All right! Settle down, girls.’

Four ATS privates and a lance-corporal, having eaten toad-in-the-hole with onion gravy, followed by sago pudding, were by now nicely relaxed and willing to give the sergeant their full attention.

‘You’ll be thinking, I shouldn’t wonder, that our circumstances are a little – er – different, and they are. We’ve been landed on what was some lord’s private estate – the War Office having turfed him out first.

‘The house is called Heronflete Priory, and before some bright spark asks if you’ll be required to act like nuns, let me assure you that the priory was pulled down over a hundred years ago, when the present place was built.

‘Round about the estate are various houses, all empty now, and a few cottages and lodges once lived in by estate workers. Life will seem a little complicated at first, but things will be sorted, never fear. So – this far – any questions?’

‘Yes, sergeant.’ A tall girl whose uniform was in need of alteration got to her feet. ‘I don’t understand any of it. Just what are we supposed to do, here? What kind of a set-up is this?’

‘It’s – we-e-ll…Now see here, you’re going to have to learn to keep your eyes down and your mouths shut. The set-up, as far as I can make out, commandeered the Heronflete estate in a bit of a hurry. I don’t know who they are, or where they are from; if they were bombed out of London or whether they chose to come here because of the isolation. But the Priory is out of bounds until we are told otherwise. We and the soldiers who guard the place, are here as backup. I’ve been told the switchboard and teleprinters are now installed, so tomorrow we start shifts.’

‘But what is our address? We need to write home.’

‘Address – 4 Platoon, D Company, Royal Corps of Signals, c/o GPO London. No mention of this place, or anything. And you will post your letters in the box provided in the NAAFI, unsealed, so they can be censored and -’

‘Censored? Somebody’s going to read our private mail?’

‘Yes, but the censoring will be confidential, so don’t for a minute think anybody is one bit interested in your love letters, or what you write in them. Nothing will be blue-pencilled unless it refers directly or indirectly to Heronflete. And what is more, you will not discuss this place when you are away from it – not when on leave, nor in pubs, dancehalls or cinemas or anywhere else.’

‘So they’re going to let us out from time to time, sergeant?’

‘Watch it!’ The sergeant did not allow sarcasm. ‘Of course you’ll be let out. You’ll have your time on shift and your free time, and just as any other out-of-the-way unit, transport will be laid on. The only way in which things are different is that this place seems to be a bit of a mystery, as yet.’

‘Seems, Sergeant? Don’t you know, then?’

‘I’ve been told – things – and doubtless I will be told more. But for the time being, watch what you say and what you write. If it’s of any interest, your letters will not need stamps. And that’s just about it for the time being. I’ll show you round. The mess hall and cookhouse you already know, and where the NAAFI is. In the ablutions you will also find facilities for doing your personal washing and drying.

‘I do not want to see items of an intimate nature or even shirts hanging on lines behind billets. You can send seven items of clothing to the laundry each week. All else, you will hang in the drying room off the ablutions.

‘So chop-chop!’ She walked to the door, then turned, eyes narrowed. ‘And smarten up! Caps on and look lively, or I’ll line you up and you can all march around the place!’

‘Y’know, this estate is lovely,’ Evie Turner sighed. ‘I wouldn’t like anyone to take it off me if it were mine.’

‘Then, if you ask me,’ Nan flopped on her bed, ‘any feller what has so much deserves to have it took off him!’

‘Nan Morrissey! You’re a communist!’ ‘Nah. Just believe in fair shares for all. Them houses we’ve just seen, f’r instance. It’s just like a little village and it all belonged to his lordship. Now me, I come from a grotty dump, with an outside lavvy and muck and soot all over everything. It’s goin’ to be like living in the country as far as I’m concerned, and it wouldn’t bother me if I stayed here for the duration.’

Southgate Lodge looked almost lived in, Carrie thought, now beds were made up and photographs arranged on locker tops. And a jamjar filled with roses and honeysuckle on the mantelpiece.

‘Well, I’m going to write to Bob,’ Evie smiled.

‘Your husband?’ Nan had noticed the lance-corporal’s wedding ring. ‘Where is he?’

‘RAF. Overseas – the Middle East, I’m almost sure. We got married on his embarkation leave. Seven days of heaven, as the song goes, then back to the ATS again. You two got boyfriends?’

‘Not me. Wasn’t allowed to go out with fellers. Had to stay at home and look after me brother -stepbrother -’ Nan amended firmly. ‘My real mum died and me dad married again. Then he got killed in the bombing, so I wasn’t stoppin’. Shoved off to mum’s sister in Leeds. Me Auntie Mim. Best thing I ever did; that, and joining up.’

‘So life in the ATS suits you?’ Carrie liked the frankly-spoken girl with beautiful eyes.

‘You bet! Bed and board and no clothing coupons to worry about. Pay day every fortnight, and every brass farthing of it mine! But what about you, Carrie? Courting, are you?’

‘I’m – er – engaged, actually. Jeffrey. He’s in the Navy.’

‘And he didn’t buy you a ring? It’s unofficial, then?’

‘No. I’ve got a ring. But there was so much dirty work to do when I was training that I put it with my identity tag around my neck. Afraid it’s still there.’

‘Ar. I see…’

Nan did not see. If she had an engagement ring, no way would she shove it out of sight. ‘And I’ll take the letters to the post when you’ve written them, if you like. I’ll just do a quick one to Auntie Mim – let her know I’ve landed on me feet.’

For never before had Nan Morrissey seen so many trees and hedgerows, nor heard birds singing so loudly and so late, nor picked roses and honeysuckle to scent this diddy little room in this diddy little house, she thought with pure affection.

‘It’s smashing here, Dad.’ She sent her thoughts high and wide. ‘You’re not to worry about me one bit, ’cause I’m living in the country, now, like I always wanted to…’

She hoped he could hear her. She thought reluctantly about the Queer One in Cyprian Court and about Georgie, then blanked them from her mind as if they had never existed.

Dear Auntie Mim,

This is to let you know my new address so you can write to me. I think I will be here for some time; wouldn’t mind being here for the duration, it is so nice. Just three of us in a billet like a doll’s house. I’ll write more, later. Please write back to me, soon.

Love, Nan X X

‘Well, that’s mine written.’ She laid the envelope on the windowsill. ‘Think I’ll have a bit of a walk, till youse two have finished.’

Remembering to put on her cap she walked down the front path, taking deep breaths of air, marvelling at her luck, and though she had not grasped just what she would be doing here, she was content to be part of a set-up that was as different as could be from the barracks she had reported to, and the just as awful teleprinter training school. All bull it had been, and everything at the double.

Here, it was as if life had slowed down now the hectic weeks of her training were over, though not even in her dreams had she thought to be sent to such a place.

The gateposts either side of the drive that led to Heronflete were ornately patterned in stone and there had obviously been gates there. Probably, Nan thought, taken away to be melted down for war weapons, like gates and railings all over the country. The government in London took anything they wanted; for the war effort, they said, and if you told them it wasn’t on, they took not one blind bit of notice, and accused you of being unpatriotic!

She thought about the lord, and if he had been a bit miffed when the War Office took his house and all the estate, and it made her wonder what had happened to the workers and the farmers and their animals, because they had had to get out, too.

A funny old war, you had to admit, but she was glad she had joined it and met up with Evie and Carrie, though Sergeant James was a bit of a martinet, Nan brooded.

She gazed up a wide driveway with oak trees on either side and which turned abruptly to the left about two hundred yards on. Round that bend she might be able to see Heronflete, even though one big, empty house was probably the same as another. It intrigued her, though, for the simple reason that they had been told it was none of their business, though if it were none of their business, why was she and four others – and the sergeant an’ all – here in the first place?

The gravel of the drive crunched beneath her feet so she stepped onto the verge, walking slowly, carefully. The grass was damp with evening dew, and long. Probably because there were no gardeners now, to cut it. Must have upset a lot of people, having to pack up and find somewhere else to live. Not fair, really, but what was fair, when you thought, about a war?

She reached the curve in the drive and crouched in the shelter of the trees. Just a quick peep. See what all the mystery was about.

‘You there! Halt!’ yelled a voice behind her.

She swung round, gasping at the sight of a soldier holding a rifle, and though he wasn’t pointing it at her, she was all at once afraid.

‘What are you doing here, then? What’s your name, girl?’

‘304848 Morrissey N,’ she gasped, eyes wide. ‘Didn’t mean to intrude. Was getting a bit of country air.’

‘All right. I believe you. But somebody ought to have told you that up here is out of bounds.’

He jabbed a forefinger at a red and white barrier and the sentry boxes either side of it.

‘I’m sorry. You won’t say nuthin’ to Sergeant James, will you? I’ll be in dead trouble if you do.’ Nan fixed him with a wide-eyed stare.

‘Is that what she’s called? Her that goes around thinking she can give orders, you mean? Face that’d crack, if she smiled?’

‘That sounds exactly like our sergeant,’ Nan breathed. ‘I don’t want to land myself in trouble, first day here. You’ll not tell on me? I won’t ever come up here again.’

‘You can come up this drive, but only if you have a pass saying it’s all right, ’cause you’ll have to get past me and my mate over there, and we’re very particular who we let in! Now on yer way, girlie, and don’t try it on again without permission or you’ll be on a charge – see?’

‘Yes. Much obliged, I’m sure.’

Nan turned and ran, not caring about the noisy gravel, still shocked by the sentry, and his gun.

‘Hey, you two!’ She burst breathless into the lodge. ‘Up that drive! There’s sentry boxes and soldiers and one of them copped me, peepin’ through the trees. Came up behind me with a gun, and -’

‘Nan, you idiot! Weren’t we told it was none of our business? Now you’ll be in trouble.’

‘No I won’t, Evie. He said he wouldn’t tell on me – this time. An’ he said you can get up there, but only if you have a pass.’

‘So did you get a look at the place?’ Evie asked.

‘No, I didn’t, and I’m not trying it on again. I didn’t expect to get caught but they’re there, where the drive turns suddenly. Barrier across it, an’ all.’

‘Then it must be very secret if they’ve got guards there.’ Carrie folded the single sheet of notepaper and tucked it into an envelope addressed to Jackmans Cottage. ‘I’ve finished, now. Just quick notes to mother and Jeffrey. Maybe I’ll come with you to the post. You finished, Evie?’

‘Mm. Just the envelope to see to…’

My darling,

To let you know my new address and to tell you that I love you, love you, love you. I’ll write, tomorrow, to explain in great and loving detail just how much, and how desperately I miss you and want you.

Take care, Bob. You are so precious to me.

She printed the PO address on the back of the envelope then, placing it to her lips, gave it to Nan.

‘Bless you, love. I won’t be long from my bed. And I’m not hiking to the ablutions, either. I’ll make do with a quick wash at the kitchen tap and a walk down the garden. Don’t be too long, will you – just in case the sergeant decides to check up on us.’

‘I’m going to like Evie,’ Carrie said as they took the right turning to where the cluster of buildings stood. ‘Poor love. Just seven days of being married, then heaven only knows when they’ll see each other again.’

‘So when are you getting married, Carrie?’

‘Don’t ask! I’m already in trouble for not setting a date for the wedding.’

‘So why don’t you want to get married? And why aren’t you wearing your ring? Have you and your feller had a nark, or sumthin’?’

‘N-no. It’s just that everybody seems to be pressuring me into it, and I want a bit of breathing space.’

‘Why?’ Nan could think of nothing nicer than being married to a man who was decent enough to buy a ring, and make things official. ‘I’d like to be married – when I’m a bit older, I mean.’

‘And I want to marry Jeffrey, but when I want to. And I want to be one hundred per cent sure.’

‘And you aren’t?’ Nan sensed drama.

‘No. About ninety-five per cent, I’d say.’

She wished she could tell Nan why; that she was unsure about the really-being-married side of things, and that Jeffrey hadn’t been very considerate when that happened. But Nan was little more than a child. Hardly eighteen, if looks were anything to go by. It wouldn’t be right to talk about that to her. Mind, she had the most beautiful come-to-bed eyes, though she didn’t seem aware of it; eyes that could get an innocent like Nan into trouble, if she wasn’t careful.

‘Then you’re nearly there, wouldn’t you say,’ Nan laughed.

‘Almost. Jeffrey’s next leave, perhaps. Isn’t this the most beautiful evening?’ Time to talk of other things! ‘If we weren’t in uniform, we could be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t a war on at all, out there.’

‘Ar,’ Nan sighed, completely captivated. ‘Wouldn’t mind stoppin’ for ever.’

Here, in a place almost hidden from sight or sound of war, was a different life. Here, there would be no wailing sirens to send fear shivering through her; no crowded, sweaty air-raid shelters nor whole streets blasted into rubble. And no hospitals bombed.

Here, Nan Morrissey was as good as anyone else; her uniform saw to that. Here, no one seemed to worry about her accent nor the way her Liverpool bluntness might be misconstrued as rudeness. This set-up that seemed to baffle even Sergeant James was the right and proper place for her to be. It seemed, on this evening in late August, that Nan Morrissey had truly come home.

‘Ar,’ she sighed again. ‘Just wish me dad could see me now. He’d be made up for me, God love him.’

‘I’d like to think mine could see me, too. I never knew him, y’know.’

‘Last war was it, Carrie?’

‘Mm. He was badly hurt but it wasn’t his wounds he died of. It was the mustard gas, really. A slow death, it must have been. God! I hope they never use it this time around.’

‘Fighting dirty, poison gas is. Do you think them bods in Heronflete are up to something like that? Secret weapons, and that kind of thing?’

‘Back-room boys and boffins, you mean?

‘Dunno. But they’re up to sumthin’ or why all the mystery? You don’t need soldiers to guard nuthin’.’

‘They’ll tell us, perhaps – or maybe we’ll figure it out for ourselves. And it looks like Evie has fallen asleep and left her light on.’ Carrie nodded in the direction of Southgate Lodge. ‘Reckon we’d better see to the blackout, or Sergeant James’ll be down on us like a ton of bricks.’

The lance-corporal had not fallen asleep. She lay on her bed in blue and white striped pyjamas, writing pad in hand.

‘Hey up, Evie.’ Nan made for the window. ‘Time them curtains was drawn.’

‘Sorry. Got carried away, writing to Bob. Couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d write again – tell him about this new posting. What time is it?’

‘Still not quite blackout time,’ Carrie smiled. ‘And I’ve drawn all the other curtains. Couldn’t you sleep, Evie, or were you waiting for us to get back?’

‘No. Just got past it, I suppose. Posted the letters?’

‘We did,’ Nan beamed. ‘There was hardly anybody in the NAAFI – just a few soldiers, playing cards. And had you thought – we’re going to need cleaning gear. Better ask the sergeant for a chitty so we can get a brush and mop and things from stores – keep Southgate nice an’ tidy, so she can’t moan at us.’

‘I’ll see to it, tomorrow.’ Evie placed the cap on her fountain pen. ‘Y’know, this pen was Bob’s. It’s a good one and he didn’t want to take it with him when he went. Said I was to have it. I write all his letters with it. And oh,’ She closed her eyes tightly against tears. ‘I do miss him.’

‘Hey, old love, you’d be a very peculiar wife if you didn’t.’ Carrie took Evie’s hands in her own, holding them tightly. ‘And if talking about Bob helps, we’ll be glad to listen, won’t we Nan?’

‘Course we will. And we’ll send nasty thoughts to Hitler and that fat old Goering.’ Especially Goering, because it was him sent the bombers to Liverpool; his fault dad was dead.

‘Sorry,’ Evie sniffed, dabbing her eyes, forcing a smile. ‘You’ll know how it is, Carrie.’

‘Yes. Lousy…’

But was it all that bad? Had Carrie Tiptree ever been reduced to tears, just to think that Jeffrey had gone to war? Sad, granted, but never the obvious pain Evie felt.

Yet it was different for Evie and her Bob. They were husband and wife. Lovers. And that loving was good, it was plain to see by the softness in her eyes when she spoke about him. And Carrie knew when she was thinking about him, too. Perhaps Evie wasn’t aware of it, but she often fondled her wedding ring with her fingertips. Carrie Tiptree’s ring hung with the identity disc around her neck.

Mind, she was fond of Jeffrey – always had been. They’d grown up in the same village, for heaven’s sake, and she knew almost all there was to know about him. No one would be able to say theirs was a hasty marriage.

She shrugged and began to undress. She would get into her pyjamas, clean her teeth and splash her face at the kitchen sink. Then go to bed, even if she lay awake for ages.

And she would lie awake, thinking about Jackmans and her mother and Jeffrey, too, because she had let them both down if she were to be completely honest. Her mother had given a little moan, then burst into sobs when told her daughter had had a medical and been accepted by the ATS, and there was nothing anyone could do about it, now.

Carrie remembered that night in vivid detail. A vase of roses on the little table beneath the window, petals reflected pink against the dark wood. An old copper jamming pan, placed on the hearth in the ingle fireplace, full of greenery. The soft armchairs, none of them matching. The fat cushions, made by her mother from remnants of bright material. She even remembered gazing at the ink stain they hadn’t quite been able to remove from the hearthrug.

He mother had gone very pale, then moaned softly, a bewildered look on her face. Carrie thought she would faint, but then she had gasped,

‘Oh, Carrie – such deceit. How could you? Why did you do it? I don’t understand.’

Her distress had been genuine. Carrie laid an arm around her shoulders, but her mother had shrugged it off.

‘You forged my signature, didn’t you, on the form?’

‘Yes, I did…’

‘Then I shall tell them about it; that it’s all been a mistake and you won’t have to go!’

‘It would be a waste of time, mother. I’ll be twenty-one long before it’s sorted.’ Carrie’s distress had been genuine, too.

‘So tell me, Caroline, just what happened to make you do such a foolish thing, and to be so underhanded about it, too.’

‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t. It was everything in general, sort of, and nothing in particular.’

Which was true, Carrie supposed, even though she had felt vague unease for a long time about the way her life was. And as for nothing in particular – she knew exactly what it was; the instinctive need to get away and have time to think; make sure that what her mother and Jeffrey’s mother wanted was what she, Carrie, wanted too. The doubts first surfaced the night her mother had gone out to play whist, there was no denying it.

‘You are all I have in the whole world, Carrie. Your place is at home, with me. And what am I to tell the village?’

‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with them. It’s between you and me and – and Jeffrey, I suppose…’

‘Then tell me what I am to say to Ethel Frobisher? How will I be able to look her in the face?’

‘You won’t have to. I’ll tell Jeffrey’s mother. And as for the wedding – well, nothing was planned exactly.’

‘No, but it was understood, I would have thought, the day Jeffrey gave you an engagement ring. Weddings usually follow, you know. And I don’t feel at all well.’

She hadn’t looked so good, Carrie recalled. That evening, there was genuine need for aspirin and a hot drink and it had been awful, afterwards, to lie awake, listening to her mother’s sobs.

‘Won’t be a minute.’ Carrie cleared her head of thoughts, making for the kitchen. And when she came back she said,

‘Put your slippers on, Nan. That stone floor is cold! And I’ll set the alarm for seven – that all right with you, Evie?’

And Evie said it was, but would they mind if she closed her bedroom door, and they said it was fine by them. After all, she did have a stripe up!

They didn’t talk, though. Nan curled up in her bed like a contented puppy and was quickly asleep. Which left Carrie to wonder about what was to come and when she and Jeffrey would be able to arrange leaves to allow a wedding – because they would get married, she was as sure of it as she could be. Yet only when she had laid out her thoughts and doubts, and only when Jeffrey had truly understood and promised to talk about things, so that everything would come right for them. Then Caroline Tiptree – Frobisher - would have Evie’s look of love in her eyes, too, when she spoke of her sailor husband.

She thumped her pillow peevishly, then settled down to listen to the night sounds because she knew sleep would not come easily. It never did, when you were desperately tired and in need of it.

She tried to think of Jeffrey, still in Plymouth barracks waiting for a draft to a ship, but could not, so instead she turned on her back and stared at the ceiling, telling herself that tomorrow was another day, a bright new start to her life as W/462523 Tiptree C. because that was who she was, now, for as long as the war lasted. A name and number.

Yet instead she sighed deeply and tried hard not to think of Jackmans Cottage and her bedroom with the sloping roof and tiny window – and the pigeon that nested in the tree in the lane outside and made a terrible noise as soon as daylight came.

A tear slipped from her eye and trickled down her cheek and into her ear. It made her annoyed to realize it was the first she had shed since leaving home almost two months ago.

She was not, she supposed, as tough as she had thought!

Four

Carrie, in search of Corporal Finnigan, found the motor pool in what had once been Heronflete’s stable block. Three-sided, with a cobbled yard and approached through gateposts without gates, of course. On her right was what could only be stabling for several horses; ahead, a coach house with massive, wide-open doors; to her left a drab building with small windows and a low, narrow door. Had grooms once lived there, Carrie wondered, and ostlers and stable lads in the old glory days?

She heard the clump of boots and turned to see the driver of yesterday’s transport who had warned them they were going to get the shock of their lives. He looked more human in grease-stained overalls.

‘Corporal Finnigan? I – I’m the new driver.’

‘You’ll be Tiptree C, then?’

‘Yes, Corporal. Carrie. And you were right, yesterday. This place was a shock, but a nice one.’

‘Nice? Stuck at the back of beyond, living in civilian houses and a motor pool that would make a cat laugh! Take a look at that!’ He jabbed a finger into the deeps of the coach house. ‘One pesky transport, one car – officers-for-the-use-of – and one pick-up truck. You’ll be driving that round the estate, Tiptree, collecting girls for shifts, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Yes, Corporal.’ It was all she could think of to say.

‘And you might as well know that when I arrived here, two weeks ago, I had seen better vehicles in museums! But I didn’t let them beat me. “I’ll have that lot up to scratch, or my name isn’t Frederick Finnigan,” I said. Know anything about engine maintenance, Tiptree?’

‘Sorry – no. But I can change a wheel and I know about keeping spark plugs clean and what to do if a fan belt snaps. Not a lot, but I want to learn.’ She truly did.

‘Then you’ve come to the right place. We’ll soon take care of them lilywhite hands! Mind, I never yet met a woman as made a good motor mechanic. Haven’t got the strength, see, in their arms. We’ve got a mechanic here, by the way, only he’s gone to sick bay. Toothache driving him mad.

‘So here are the rules. You will provide tea, drive when required to, and call me corporal at all times, ’cept when the three of us is alone, when you call me Freddy and him at sick bay is Norman. Norm. Any questions?’

‘N-no. Should I nip back to the billet and get into my overalls?’

‘No point. Do it when we knock off for grub.’

‘So when do I make tea?’

‘Every other hour, on the hour. Next brew at ten.’

‘That’s a lot of tea, corporal. Do the rations stand up to it,’ Carrie frowned.

‘No. Leastways, not the pesky pittance we get from Stores. But me and the sergeant cook have come to an understanding. You take the small enamel pot to the cookhouse and tell them you’ve come for Freddy’s tea. And it’ll help if you smile sweetly.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Exactly like that, girl. So till then, you’d better take the pick-up for a bit of a run – on the estate roads, I mean. And you’ll have to crank it up. Give it a good swing.’

Carrie stared with dismay at the truck, then silently enlisting the help of any guardian angel that might be hovering, shoved in the starting handle and swung it hard.

She heard a grunt and a groan and a cough. Oh, my goodness, she had started it! First try! She grinned at the corporal, who grinned back.

‘Not bad, Tiptree. It’s the way you hold your mouth as does it. So on your way, then. Let’s see what you’re made of.’

Carrie engaged first gear, inching out of the coach house. And please, she wouldn’t run into one of the gateposts? Not on her first day?

She drove carefully. To her left was the estate office, ahead the cookhouse. Now it was a downhill run as far as Southgate Lodge. She touched the brake with her foot and thanked the angel fervently for a truck that did indeed seem up to scratch.

Evie and Nan were dressed in overalls, cleaning windows outside the billet. Carrie stopped, and jumped down.

‘Goodness!’ Evie put down her pad of scrunched-up newspaper and made for the gate. ‘Where on earth are you going in that!’ She was trying, Carrie knew, not to laugh.

‘It’s a right old rattletrap!’ Nan joined them.

‘It’s old I’ll grant you, but there’s a pussy cat under that bonnet,’ Carrie defended, ‘and the gears are like silk. As a matter of fact, I might be driving you all to and from shifts in it – when things are up and running, that is.’

‘Then that might well be tomorrow. The GPO bods will be finished by afternoon, and all the shift workers are to give the place a good cleaning. We’re in the estate office, did you know?’

‘I guessed as much. Saw the green vans outside. I’m next door, in the stable yard with Corporal Finnigan and a mechanic called Norman. So see you! I’ll go as far as Priest’s Lodge, then I’ll have to be back for tea at ten. Looks like I’m in charge, in that department!’ she laughed. ‘Bye…’

‘Y’know, she’s such a pretty girl,’ Evie sighed. ‘Pity she doesn’t smile more often.’

‘Pity she doesn’t wear her engagement ring,’ Nan said darkly.

‘Mm.’ Evie thought it a pity, too, but had the good sense not to say so.

Carrie drove past the little church and the end of the wood, her hands relaxed on the wheel, feeling not a little pleased that 462523 Tiptree C was doing what she had joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service to do. She was a driver, at last. And for a bonus, Heronflete Priory – Draft HP4 – was as different as could be from the hectic regime she had experienced in barracks, and at the training camp in Wiltshire. Now, life seemed almost calm again. And all things considered, with a little give and take, of course, she might just get to enjoy Army life. One day.

‘I want this place fully operational by Wednesday,’ said Sergeant James. ‘Also, the powers-that-be have indicated that that is the way they would like it, too.’ She inclined her head in the direction of the trees that screened Heronflete.

‘So they’re alive in there? There really is -’ ‘Quiet! It is not for me to hazard an opinion. Sufficient to say that cars have been seen heading in the direction of the big house, so I think we can take it that They have arrived and will expect us to deal efficiently and discreetly with whatever we have been sent here to do! Now, girls, does Wednesday’s date have any significance?’ ‘Er – September 3?’ Evie supplied.

‘Good! I’m glad one of you is on the ball. Wednesday, will also be the first day of the third year of hostilities. And tomorrow, A-shift will be here and ready for duty at O600 hours and you, Tiptree, will deliver them promptly. You will also be responsible for ferrying the girls at Priest’s, who will be working the opposite shifts.’

‘Yes, sergeant.’ Carrie had already made a mental note to set the alarm for five-twenty which would give her time enough, surely, to dress, collect the truck from the stable yard, then pick up the shift.

She hoped she would get it right; hoped the alarm clock worked; hoped the truck started first time. Mind, it shouldn’t be too bad. September mornings were still light, though what would happen in winter, when blackout began in late afternoon and lasted until at least eight the following morning, she chose not to dwell upon too much.

‘I will pin up the duty rosters; one in each billet and one here in the signals office, so no one will have any excuse for lateness. And that especially means you, Tiptree.’

‘Yes, sergeant,’ Carrie whispered, automatically.

‘Right, then. Fifteen minutes for a cookhouse break, then I want you back here for ten-thirty and we’ll make a start getting the clobber unloaded and stacked away here! OK, girls!’

‘Y’know, it’s a funny going-on,’ Evie said when they sat with mugs of saccharin-sweet tea in front of them – ‘the two-shift system, I mean. I’ve always worked night shift, as well. I believe men will do the nights for the time being. Maybe they aren’t expecting much overnight traffic’

‘Well, we’ll soon know what’s going on. There’ll be teleprinter messages, I mean, and you’ll be able to have the odd listen-in, Evie.’ Nan blew on her tea.

‘I’ll be doing no such thing, Nan Morrissey. I could lose my stripe for listening-in!’

Could lose it, she amended silently, if she were caught listening-in!

‘When I arrived here, I wondered what on earth I was going to do,’ Carrie smiled, ‘but I’m going to be kept pretty busy. I’ll have to collect the late shift, then take the earlies back to billets. And Corporal Finnigan expects me to learn engine maintenance, too. Mind, there’ll always be Norman to fall back on. He seems very affable, now he’s had his toothache seen to. But shift-working is a seven-day job, and my last run will be at ten at night. I’m not going to get any time off at all.’

‘Of course you will,’ Evie laughed. ‘If men are going to do night-shifts, then maybe your corporal will arrange something for you. It was him collected us from Lincoln, remember. Or maybe the mechanic will do some of the late runs.

‘Of course, when we are working from two till ten it means that every other night we won’t be able to go anywhere. It could play havoc with your love life, if you think about it. Not that I mind, of course, though Bob doesn’t expect me to live like a nun. I’ll be going dancing, though I won’t be up for dates.’

Her wedding ring would see to that. If asked, she held up her left hand and smiled and said, ‘Sorry.’ The decent ones accepted it, and it was tough luck on those who thought a young married woman in uniform was fair game.

‘I suppose there’ll be dances round about.’ Carrie loved to dance, though Jeffrey wasn’t too keen. ‘One of the girls at Priest’s told me there’s a village not far away. Within walking distance, she heard. Perhaps there’ll be a pub we can go to – just for the odd drink and a change of scene, I mean.’

‘Suppose we’ll give it a try,’ Evie was fondling her ring again. ‘But had you thought that we’ll be on duty from two in the afternoon until ten at night, then next day we’ll be on earlies – six till two in the afternoon.’

‘A bit much, if you ask me,’ Nan grumbled.

‘You still haven’t got the point. We do a late, followed by an early, then we’re off duty till two o’clock the following afternoon. Virtually twenty-four hours off. We could go much further afield than the local pub. There’ll be dances and flicks in Lincoln and if Sergeant James allows us sleeping-out passes, we could get a bed at the Y W and make a real night out of it.’

‘What,’ Nan wanted to know, ‘is the Y W?’

‘You’ve heard of the YMCA, surely? Well, the YWCA is the female equivalent. If you can manage to bag a bed there, it’s a good place to stay – and cheap and cheerful, too.’

‘Ar…’ Nan frowned. ‘But will I be able to sleep out? I’m not eighteen till November.’

‘If you’re old enough to join up, you’re old enough for a SOP – if the sergeant allows them, that is.’

‘Seems Sergeant James has the last word, here. Why haven’t we got an officer of our own?’ Carrie frowned.

‘Because in my opinion a few females don’t warrant an officer. And maybe the sergeant won’t be so bad, once we’re in some kind of a routine. And talking of angels…’ Evie nodded towards the doorway where Sergeant James looked pointedly at her wrist watch.

They worked hard all morning, Carrie driving the pick-up truck piled with supplies from the quartermaster’s stores to the estate office which now bore a notice on the door. SIGNALS OFFICE: NO ENTRY.

They cleaned out cupboards then stacked them with teleprinter rolls, stationery, pencils, pens and signal pads. They positioned In-trays and Out-trays, dusted everything that didn’t move, polished the sergeant’s desk, then swept and mopped the black and red floor tiles.

‘Just the windows to clean – inside and out,’ the sergeant stressed, ‘then you can call it a day, girls.’

* * *

They ate corned-beef hash and pickled red cabbage at midday, which made Carrie very happy, with rice pudding and a dollop of bright red jam in the middle of it for pudding.

‘I’m goin’ to have a lazy afternoon. Got a magazine to read,’ Nan took the billet key from its hiding place above the front door jamb. ‘What are youse two goin’ to do?’

‘Write to Bob,’ Evie smiled, ‘then do some ironing. And my buttons and cap badge need a polish. What about you, Carrie?’

‘Probably sweep the workshop floor or clean the officers’ car and see to the tea, of course. Corporal Finnigan won’t be giving me the rest of the afternoon off.’

Which was a pity, really, because she had to -wanted to – write to Jeffrey. Letters, redirected from their old addresses, had arrived this morning; one for Nan, four for Evie and two for herself; from her mother and from Jeffrey, still in barracks with never a draft chit in sight.

I am stuck here like a lemon, polishing and cleaning and hardly getting any morse in at all. Which gives me a lot of time to think about how much I love you and miss you and wish you had been there when I had my leave.

Have a photo taken of yourself in uniform – not that I need to be reminded how lovely you are…

Jeffrey, she thought, could be quite sweet when he put himself out – or had his loving, longing letter been the result of a run ashore and a few pints of beer?

Then she chided herself for such thoughts, knowing that things between them would be all right, once she caught her fiancé in another loving and longing mood and they were able to talk sensibly and calmly about – things.

She had reason, too, to warm towards Corporal Finnigan that afternoon when he said, ‘I was having a word with Sergeant James about your duties, Carrie – the last run, I mean. Seems you won’t have as much free time as the rest of the girls, so Norman here has volunteered to do the evening pick-up, at ten.’

‘Norm! How good of you.’ Carrie blushed with pleasure. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

Private Fowler did not mind at all. He was courting very seriously and wrote home to his girl every evening. He was also saving up for an engagement ring, and the extra duty meant less time and money spent in the NAAFI. He also liked Carrie. She was pleasant and willing and – what was by far the most agreeable thing about her – she now did the tea run which been the bane of his life until she arrived.

‘Think nothing of it,’ he had said, grinning awkwardly, because it was nice to be appreciated, sometimes.

That was when Carrie looked at her watch and, without being asked, picked up the small enamel teapot and walked cheerfully to the cookhouse.

Nan addressed the letter to her aunt, wrote On Active Service in the top, left-hand corner, then propped the envelope on the mantelpiece, wishing there was someone other than Auntie Mim to send her letters. She wondered what it would be like to have a boyfriend to write to, but in Liverpool boyfriends had been thin on the ground when you had to depend on Georgie’s sleeping habits for your free time.

It might be nice to be cuddled and kissed – even once. But she was sweet seventeen, wasn’t she, and ran true to form because she had never, to her shame, been kissed. But she would be eighteen in November, and a lot could happen between now and then. Oh, please it would!

Dearest Jeffrey, Carrie wrote,

At last I have time to write to you properly. Things have been hectic these last few days but we seem, now, to have settled into a routine and tomorrow shift work starts for real.

There are very few of us, here. I can’t tell you what we do exactly, but I am attached to No.4. Signals as a driver, and though we mark our letters On Active Service, and they are censored, it means nothing more than that I am billeted Somewhere in England at the back of beyond in a a tiny gate lodge with Nan and Evie.

Carrie read what she had written, looking for anything that might not be allowed but decided that so far, there was nothing to invite the censor’s blue pencil or scissors. Somewhere in England was a term always used now, and could mean anywhere at all between the south coast and Hadrian’s Wall. She wondered who censored their letters. Sergeant James? She hoped not.

I am alone, here, tonight. Nan and Evie have gone for a long walk, in the direction of the village which is about a mile away.

Nan is very young – not yet eighteen – and delighted to be away from her ‘wicked stepmother’. Her eyes are enormous and brown, and her eyelashes are the longest I have ever seen. Nan and I room together; Evie, having a stripe up, has the small single bedroom. Evie is married to Bob, who is overseas and she writes to him every day.

Married. So what did she write to Jeffrey about their own wedding? She should tell him, she knew, that she could not wait for the day when they would be able to arrange it but instead she wrote,

I have been thinking about you and me, and if we will have a very quiet, village wedding. Long white dresses and veils are out, now, so if it looks like being a winter wedding, how about us being married in uniform? It would save a lot of fuss and bother and might be rather nice, don’t you think? As soon as we can get together, we must have a long talk about it…

Talk! Dear sweet heaven, it wasn’t the wedding she wanted to talk about! It was after the wedding that sometimes had her sick with worry, even to think about it. Oh, they had kissed and cuddled a lot and at times got quite passionate, which had been rather nice, but actually doing it…

And why did people refer to it as It? Wouldn’t lovemaking be a better word, though hers and Jeffrey’s coupling had been entirely without love. Just a taking, really, and she stupid enough to let it happen!

I think that in about another month, I might be able to put in a request for leave, but will have to talk to Sgt James (our boss lady!) about it.

When you get drafted to a seagoing ship, will you automatically get leave? If you do, perhaps I can try to get a 72-hour pass, so that at least we can talk together about things…

It all came down to talking, didn’t it? And how would she, when they did eventually arrange leaves together, be able to tell him about her doubts?

‘I didn’t enjoy what we did, Jeffrey.’ Would she, dare she, say that? Would her criticism annoy him or would he understand how she had felt and tell her, promise her, it would be all right between them, once they were married?

‘Oh, damn, damn, damn!’ Irritated, she walked to the window to stand arms folded staring up the lane, seeing nothing. What a mess it all was! And why hadn’t she told her mother about it?

Because she couldn’t talk to her mother about such things. Her mother had always been stuffy about what went on between married couples; had told her they found her under the lavender bush at the bottom of the flower garden and even though she had been very young at the time, she had known that babies grew in ladies ’tummies and the district nurse got them out.

She returned to her bed, pushed off her shoes and lay back, hands behind head, wondering if she were making a fuss over nothing; thinking that maybe every bride-to-be had doubts and worries. Maybe even Evie had had them?

Sighing, Carrie picked up her pen and pad.

I think about you a lot, Jeffrey, and miss you very much. But it is all the fault of the war, and there are many couples not so lucky as you and me – Evie and Bob, for one.

I hope you will get a ship, soon. It must be awful for you in barracks. I hated barracks when I first joined up but this place has more than made up for it. Nan and Evie and I get on fine, as I do with Corporal Finnigan and Private Fowler in the motor pool.

She flicked back the sheets and read what she had written. Not much of a letter to write to someone you would almost certainly marry before the year was out; not what a lonely sailor wanted to read. She bit her lip, and wrote,

Take care of your dear self. I love you very much and can’t wait for us to be married. When you read this, close your eyes and know that I am kissing you.

She read the letter again then ended it Yours always, Carrie.

She supposed that now she must walk to the NAAFI and post it. She wished she had gone out with Nan and Evie and thought that wherever they were, they’d be having a laugh. It made her wish all the more she was with them.

Evie and Nan swung along the narrow road, feet in step, arms swinging, respirators to the left.

Always your left to leave your right hand free for saluting!

‘Tell me – did you have bad feet when you joined up?’ Nan giggled. ‘Gawd – all that square-bashing and them clumpy shoes – I thought I’d be a cripple for life!’

‘Mm. I had awful blisters, but you soon get used to the shoes, don’t you? And my soft pair will be lovely for dancing in. Do you think there’ll be a dance-hall in the village? Or a picture house?’

‘Don’t think so, but I reckon there’ll be a pub. Tell me, Evie, were you miserable when you joined up, because there must be sumthin’ the matter with me, ’cause I couldn’t wait to get into uniform. And I still like it.’

‘Not miserable about being in the ATS. Just unhappy that Bob had to register for military service, and knowing we wouldn’t see each other for heaven only knew how long. So I made a vow, the day I waved him off at the station. I was joining up, too. I didn’t care which service. The first recruiting office I came to, be it Army, Navy or Air Force, I told myself, would suit me just fine. I worked on a huge switchboard in Eastern Command HQ. There were a lot of us there; it took my mind off being away from Bob, yet now here I am in a little gate lodge in the middle of a country estate and the tiniest switchboard I’ve ever seen. I’ll be able to operate it with one hand behind my back! How about you, Nan?’

‘Can’t wait for morning. I wonder who my first signal will be from? And just look there.’ She pointed ahead as they rounded the corner to where a cluster of houses, a church and public house lay ahead of them. ‘Last one there buys the shandies!’

The public house at Little Modeley was called the Black Bull and was small and low-ceilinged and wreathed in cigarette smoke. Heads turned as they entered, then an old man with a pewter tankard in front of him smiled and nodded towards empty chairs beside him.

‘You’ll be two of them lady soldiers as have comed to the Priory,’ he said as they removed caps, gloves and respirators.

‘Er – yes. Very nice place,’ Evie conceded, dipping into her pocket for a half-crown. ‘What are you drinking?’

‘A half of bitter and thank you kindly, Miss.’

‘She’s a Missus,’ Nan said when Evie stood at the bar counter, ‘so don’t get any ideas, grandad. And me name’s Nan. I’m not married, and I’m not lookin’, either. But how did you know we were at Heronflete?’

‘You’ve been expected. Caused a lot of speculation in these parts when the government told his lordship they wanted him out. Gave him four weeks to pack up, and go. Us thought it would be the Air Force moving in, there being quite a few aerodromes around these parts, but then we heard it would be the Army and civilians…’

‘What have I missed?’ Evie put three glasses on the tabletop.

‘Nuthin except that it’s probably civvies in the big house and that the lord was given four weeks’ notice to get out,’ Nan shrugged.

‘So what did he call himself when he was at home?’ Evie pushed a half of bitter in the man’s direction.

‘Thanks, Missus, and cheers!’ He took a sip then poured the contents of the glass into his tankard, shaking out every last drop. ‘He was -still is, I suppose – Lord Mead-Storrow. Took it all very well, so talk had it.’

‘You’ve got to feel sorry for him,’ Evie sighed. ‘It must have been a beautiful place to live before it was commandeered. Wonder how many staff it took to run the place?’

‘Not staff, girl. Servants. That’s what the aristocracy employs. And they had to get out an’ all. Find other jobs. ’Twas the farmers I was sorry for, though they’ve been allowed to harvest growing crops. Last of the wheat and barley was cut a couple of weeks ago. Only root crops left, now. Turnips and sugar beet…’

‘Rotten, innit, when the government can take your ’ouse or your car or your railings and gates without so much as a by-your-leave. Did they give Lord Wotsit another place to go to?’ Nan frowned.

‘I doubt it. He’s got a house in London and another estate in Scotland. Him won’t be all that bothered. So what’s them civilians doing at Heronflete and why do they need such a big place to do it in? Must be something of national importance.’

‘Do you want to know something?’ Evie grinned. ‘There are a few guards and ATS personnel billeted in the gate lodges and a couple of RASC bods there, and the cookhouse staff, and having said that, you know as much as we do! I don’t know whether it’s one of the Services or civilians in the big house. Maybe we’ll find out in time, but right now we’re as puzzled as you are.’

And that, Evie thought, should have been the end of the matter and the old man should have picked up his tankard and joined the drinkers at another table, but still he lingered.

‘I think you two should be warned,’ he said softly.

‘What about?’

‘About,’ he tapped his nose with a forefinger, ‘things…’

‘What things?’ To her credit, Nan was instantly on her feet. ‘Another glass, grandad?’

‘Don’t mind if I do.’

‘So what things?’ Nan was quickly back. ‘About Heronflete, you mean?’

‘About Heronflete Priory as has been in the Mead-Storrow family for generations. Before my grandad’s time, even. It was my grandad as told me. About Cecilia.’

‘And who was she when she was at home?’ Nan urged, eyes bright.

‘We-e-ll, nobody’s quite sure who she was, but it was on St Cecilia’s day that they found her.’ He paused, looking from one to the other. ‘So they gave her that name. Had to have a name, see, to bury her decent…’

‘You mean someone found a dead body at Heronflete?’ Now Evie was curious.

‘Nah. At the Priory. When they was pulling it down. Them Storrows was rich, so they decided on one of them houses that look like a castle. Knocked down what was left of the priory so they could build another place, grander than the one they were living in – the one that’s there, now.’

‘But where did they find the body? Came across a grave, did they?’ Nan’s eyes were rounder than ever.

‘Grave? Oh, my word no! Came across a skeleton. Shackled hand and foot. Walled up.’

‘Oh, my lor’. A nun, was it?’

‘Had to be. Men wasn’t allowed in priories. That poor woman must’ve been there for hundreds of years – before King Henry the Eighth looted the place, then had the roof pulled off. Must’ve caused great consternation, at the time. Lord Storrow’s ancestor got into a right state about it. Thought the terrible way the woman had died would bring bad luck to his smart new house. So he got a priest in, talk has it, and had the spot where she was found blessed, then gave the skeleton a Christian burial.

‘You can see the grave, still. About a hundred yards from the house, with a little stone there. A bit worn now, I believe, but you can still make out the name.’

‘That was a very decent thing to do. She’d have been ’appy about havin’ a decent grave. But we won’t be allowed to go and look at it. We can’t get up to Heronflete without a pass.’ Nan remembered the soldiers. ‘Nice to hear a story with a happy ending.’

‘Ar, but it wasn’t – a happy ending, I mean. That nun wasn’t taking it lying down. Her didn’t want to rest! Well, would you have done if you’d died the way she did? To this very day, she reminds folk about it, makes sure they don’t forget.’

‘Now don’t tell me she comes back a-haunting,’ Evie giggled, ‘because I won’t believe it. I have never seen a ghost and I’ve never met anyone who has!’

‘Then you should’ve spoken to the estate workers around Heronflete. People saw her…’

‘How many – and were they sober at the time?’

‘Folks saw her, that’s all I know. A figure in black, and not near the grave, either. Near the stables. People figured that it was in the vicinity of the stables that she died, when you saw plans of what the priory looked like, and took into account where it was set down.’

‘Well, I hope it isn’t true grandad, ’cause our friend works at the stableyard. It’s where they keep the transports, now.’

‘We-e-ll, chances of seeing Cecilia are rare. Only on two dates have folk come across her. In April – when people felt that’s when she might have been walled up – and on St Cecilia’s day, the time when her was set free, you might say.’

‘And when is that?’ Evie was still smiling, completely unconvinced.

‘In November, if you must know. When the nights are dark early.’

‘When in November?’ Nan’s tongue made little clicking noises and she gulped at her drink.

‘The twenty-second. Leastways, that’s what my grandad told me.’

‘The twenty-second!’ Nan got to her feet, pulling on her cap, wriggling her fingers into her gloves. ‘Come on, Evie. I’m goin’. Don’t want to hear nuthin’ more about ghosts!’ She slung her respirator, and made for the door.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Biting back a smile, Evie got to her feet. ‘Telling such fibs! G’night Mr-er…Nice to have met you.’

‘An’ you too, Missus. But I wasn’t fibbing. Honest I wasn’t!’

And then he began to chuckle.

‘Wait on! Don’t be upset,’ Evie soothed when she caught up with the indignant Nan. ‘You know there are no such things as ghosts. He was only teasing!’

‘Maybe he was, but they didn’t have to find the nun on my birthday, did they?’

‘Does it matter when the poor soul was found – if she was found, which I very much doubt. You should have seen your face, Nan. The old boy was having the time of his life, inventing a ghost and getting free beer into the bargain!’

‘Well, I think he meant it. He was real serious about it – couldn’t have made all that lot up on the spur of the moment. But there’s one way to find out. We’ve got to ask around and see if anybody has come across a grave with a stone marker. I reckon that guard what came up on me from behind the other night would know.’

‘So what do you say to him, Nan? Excuse me, but have you seen a nun’s grave on your travels? You’d have to tell him, then, about the man in the pub, and he’d laugh his head off at you! So, repeat after me! There – are – no – such – things -as ghosts!’

‘All right, then – there are no such things as ghosts. But I’m goin’ to find out all I can about that grave. A hundred yards away from the house, didn’t he say?’

‘Yes. And Southgate is much farther away than that, so it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll ever see the nun – if she exists, that is.’

‘Ghosts don’t exist, Evie. If they existed, they wouldn’t be ghosts. And I think we should warn Carrie to be careful of that stable block. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind goin’ to the NAAFI when we get back – have a big cup of hot cocoa.’ Cocoa, Nan reasoned, was safe and sane and helped you to sleep.

‘What! Had you forgotten – the NAAFI hut is right beside the stables,’ Evie giggled.

‘I know it is, but it’s April and November that’s the hauntin’ season so we’ll be all right tonight, Miss Clever Clogs. Now, are you goin’ to hurry up, or what!’

Nan Morrissey wanted the thick walls of Southgate Lodge around her – and before it got dark, an’ all!

Carrie locked the door of Southgate Lodge, placed the key on the door lintel, then made for the NAAFI, Jeffrey’s letter in her pocket.

‘Hi, there! Have we got news for you!’ A breathless Nan at the gate. ‘You aren’t goin’ to believe this in a million years!’

‘So tell me,’ Carrie smiled, glad to see them. ‘You found the village pub and they were giving free drinks!’

‘Garn! Better’n that, Carrie. Heronflete’s got a ghost! An old feller in the pub told us.’

‘Don’t take any notice. He was pulling her leg. There are no such things as ghosts. You tell her, Carrie!’

‘What? That I don’t believe in spirits and ghosts and things that go bump in the night? But I did, once – when I was a kid. But walk with me to the NAAFI. Tell me about it?’

So, breathless and flush-cheeked, Nan told all, and when she had finished and when Carrie had posted her letter she said, ‘OK? So do you believe the old feller, Carrie?’

‘Well – once I might have, but since you ask, Nan, no, I don’t. When I was little, there was a big old house near the village. Empty, and falling down and dangerous. Chunks falling off it all the time. We weren’t supposed to go there, but the lads in the village couldn’t keep away.

‘They didn’t want girls with them, so they told us awful tales about headless ghosts and bloodstains on the floor. Said that was why the place was so neglected – because no one would live there because they’d been frightened away by the hauntings. None of it was true, of course. Jeffrey and Todd had invented it all. Stupid of me to have believed them. So – shall we have a mug of tea whilst we’re here? My treat.’

And Evie said thanks, she would, and Nan said could she have cocoa to help her to sleep?

‘So here’s to ghosts,’ Evie laughed, raising her mug of tea.

‘Don’t mock.’ Nan sipped her cocoa gratefully. They made smashing cocoa, here; put Carnation milk in it so it was worth the extra penny. ‘And you believed once, Carrie, even though it was only a leg-pull. So tell me – I know Jeffrey’s the feller you’re engaged to, but who is Todd – your brother?’

‘No, though we were brought up together. My father owed his father, you see.’

And, with remembering in her eyes, she told them about how, before he died, her father had made provision for his batman’s widow and her young son; out of gratitude, that was.

‘Todd was nearly fourteen when he left us. Marie, his mum, died very suddenly of diphtheria so he went to his Auntie Hilda, in Lancashire.’

‘Did you miss him,’ Evie asked softly.

‘I did. He’d always been around, then suddenly there’s this lady come to take him away. I wanted him to stay with us, but my mother said she couldn’t be held responsible for bringing him up; that it was best he should go to family. I cried a lot.’

‘So where is he, now?’

‘Haven’t a clue, Nan. He never wrote, nor came back to the village – not even to see his mother’s grave. I’ve never been able to understand why, because before he went he said he was going to marry me one day and I told him I’d like that very much. My first proposal – aged twelve…’

‘Rotten of him not to write, for all that.’

‘Mm. I was really upset. And what was worse, I hadn’t got his aunt’s address and my mother had lost it, so I couldn’t write and ask him how he was. Perfidious creatures, men are. I still think about him – sometimes.’

‘But of course you do. You always remember your first love. Only natural. But you’re happy with Jeffrey, now.’

‘Of course I am, Evie.’

‘So why don’t you wear your ring,’ Nan demanded bluntly.

‘You know why not. But I promise you that if ever we go out to a dance, or anything, I’ll wear it.’

The sun was setting as they walked back to Southgate Lodge. Low and red in the sky promising a crisp September morning, then sun to break through and melt away the early autumn mists.

‘Soon be time to draw the blackout curtains.’ Evie unlocked the door. ‘And this is the first time in my entire Army career that I’ve ever had the key to my billet! It’s so – different – here. Too good to last, if you ask me.’

‘And why shouldn’t it last,’ Nan demanded, taking off her cap, unbuttoning her jacket. ‘I always dreamed of country cottages but I never once thought the Army would billet me in one. If I have any say in the matter, I’m stoppin’ here for the duration.’

‘Ghost and all?’ Evie teased.

‘All right, then. Mock if you want, but it’ll be a different kettle of fish, won’t it, when I find that grave marker.’

And find it she would or her name wasn’t Nancy Morrissey who was a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service and would be eighteen in November. On the day – or night, most probably – that the ghost walked!

‘Er – anybody goin’ down the garden to the lavvy before it gets dark? I’ll nip down with you, if you are…’ Nan was nothing if not careful.

‘OK. Let’s all go,’ Carrie grinned. ‘We can hold hands. Safety in numbers, I suppose, in case we meet Cecilia!’

Which made Evie remark that she’d had enough of the ghostly nun for one day, and could they please remember there was a war on and tomorrow they were on early shift; their first shift at Heronflete and it began at six in the morning!

It made Carrie remember to make sure the alarm clock was set for 5.20, and Nan to ponder just how much wiser they all would be after that first shift. And it made her feel glad she would be working in the old estate office and not in the stableblock, with Carrie.

And oh, my goodness! If only the Queer One at Cyprian Court could see her now!

Five

Sergeant James slammed the flat of her hand on her door marked SIGNALS OFFICE: NO ENTRY then stood, hands on hips, mouth rounded in disapproval.

The blackout curtains on the windows either side of the door were still drawn even though, because of Double Summer Time, it had been light for half an hour. She bought down her hand again, then relaxed a little at the sound of bolts being drawn back and the scrape of a key in the lock.

A man said, ‘Oh – hi…’ He was rubbing the back of his neck, and yawning. ‘Sorry, Ma’am. Was having a zizz…’

‘Please do not address me as Ma’am. I am not an officer.’ She stepped inside, followed by Evie and Nan. ‘And are you allowed to sleep on night duty? What about the switchboard and the teleprinters?’

‘They’re fine. I put the alarm bell on the switchboard and the printer starts up automatically if a signal comes through. Which it didn’t. All night.’

‘I see. Draw back the curtains, Morrissey, and open the windows.’ She glared at a tin lid filled with cigarette ends. ‘And will you take that with you when you leave, please?’

‘Sure. No problem,’ he smiled.

Nan took a sneaky look. He wasn’t half bad. Tall, fair, dressed in black pumps and navy trousers and polo sweater. Too old for her, of course. Must be at least thirty.

‘I thought there were to be two night operators.’ The sergeant took off her cap and jacket and began the process of rolling up her sleeves to the elbow. ‘And how do I address you?’

‘Well, you are a sergeant and if I were in your mob, I’d be a sergeant too. But in the Navy, I’m a petty officer – P O, I suppose.’

‘So that’s your name? P O? Fine by me.’

‘Well, no,’ he smiled and that smile was quite something, Nan thought reluctantly. ‘I’m in Signals like yourself but my rank is that of Yeoman of Signals – not petty officer. I’m addressed as Yeoman – or Yeo, when you know me better.’

‘Quaint…’

‘No, sergeant. It’s the way it has always been. There were Yeomen and Chief Yeomen of Signals in Nelson’s day, so who are we to change it? The Royal Navy floats on tradition, you know.’

‘Really? So I take it there wasn’t a lot of traffic during the night?’

‘Not a sausage.’ He picked up the ashtray. ‘Ah, well – see you.’

He walked to the green baize door, inspected the two trays – In and Out – that stood on the hatch beside it. Then he pressed the bell push, and turned. ‘By the way, there’s a kettle in the little kitchen place and tea and sugar. Milk on the floor. Feel free to brew up.’

The door was opened from the inside and briefly Nan glimpsed a row of bells on springs on the wall.

‘Looks like there’s kitchens through there,’ she said as the green baize door slammed.

‘Never mind what’s on the other side of that door, Morrissey,’ said the sergeant. ‘Right now there’s nothing I’d like more than a mug of tea.’

In the tiny kitchen was a milk bottle in a pan of cold water under the sink and on the wooden draining board an electric kettle, tins marked tea and sugar. And four mugs in need of washing.

‘Shall I make a brew, sarge?’

The sergeant nodded, then turning to Evie who was inspecting the switchboard she said,

‘So what do you make of it, Turner – Navy bods at the big house, I mean?’

‘Don’t know, Sergeant. It gets curioser and curioser.’

‘And very little night traffic…’

‘Mm. I thought – mind, I don’t know why -that they were a load of civilians from some bombed-out government office, but they’ve got the Army guarding them and here, in this office, and a signals bod from the Navy on the other side of the green door. Combined Ops maybe?’

‘Could be, but I doubt it. And why don’t you nip to the motor pool, see if Tiptree is still there? Cookhouse won’t be operational till seven – ask her if she’d like tea?’

So Evie hurried round the back of the stables, whispering ‘Morning, Cecilia,’ then called to Carrie who was making for the gateposts.

‘Hey! Wait on, Tiptree! Sergeant says do you want a cuppa? We’ve got a kettle in there.’

‘Wouldn’t I just? Busy, are you?’

‘No, it’s dead as a dodo, and a Navy bod – a Yeoman he calls himself – doing the night shift. The sarge was a bit sniffy with him, but he seemed all right to me. Quite handsome, if you like them a bit more mature. But don’t forget to thank the Sergeant for the tea, then you might get a brew on a regular basis.’

‘At six-fifteen in the morning, I’d positively grovel if there was tea at the end of it. Lead on, lance-corporal!’

Nan switched on the kettle then rinsed mugs under the tap. Amazingly, a tea towel hung behind the door. Short of nothing, that lot at the big house, and tea and sugar unrationed, it would seem.

Carefully she spooned tea leaves into a cream enamel pot with a green handle, then leaned against the draining board, feet crossed, arms folded, to await the kettle, and to think.

Think about Heronflete Priory and the diddy little billet. And Evie and Carrie who were smashing and Sergeant James who just might become human, given time.

And she thought about being in this unbelievable place where a lord once lived, and the fields and trees and wild flowers; the peace and quiet of it, too, with only the bombers – ours – that flew over, to remind her that somewhere out there, a war was going on.

Then she closed her eyes and smiled, because tomorrow was pay day.

‘What will happen, Sergeant,’ Evie asked later, ‘when we go to the cookhouse for meals? Will you be able to manage?’

‘Of course I will, even when you get long leaves – provided you go one at a time. I’ve been in signals from day one of this war, and teleprinters and switchboards bother me not one iota.

‘And if you are reminding me that the cookhouse is open and none of us has eaten yet, I suggest you toss up for who goes first. In fact, the way things are this very minute, I think the three of us could slope off and never be missed!’

She had wondered about the lack of activity; had even thought that the Post Office engineers might have left without connecting things up, had silently fumed about this tuppeny-ha’penny place and longed with all her heart for the bustle and discipline of a properly-run unit on a wartime footing. And girls in Nissen huts!

‘You take first breakfast, Turner,’ she said absently, standing behind Nan who sat in front of two silent teleprinters, willing one of them at least to cooperate.

‘Switch that printer on, Morrissey.’

Nan pressed the start button and with a clatter the black machine came alive, so she hit the answerback key, and the carriage swung from left to right and back. On the page in front of her came CEN HP4.

‘There, sarge! Must be our call sign! HP4, off Central switchboard. We do exist, then.’

‘Seems we do. Give it a go, Morrissey – see if it prints.’

Nan cancelled the transmit swich, then typed The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The words appeared speedily, because it was one of the sentences you typed a lot, when you were a learner. If she had a silver shilling for every time that fox had jumped, she would be a very well-to-do ATS private.

‘Do you suppose they know we’re here, Sergeant? I mean – they’re so secretive that maybe they’ve forgotten to tell the government about Heronflete.’

‘Y’know, that wouldn’t surprise me at all, Morrissey!’

She sat down at the switchboard, adjusted the headset, then willed one of the circular, numbered discs to fall, or one of the square flaps of the outside lines to open with a brrr, then sighing, fixed her eyes on the second hand of the wall clock, which moved very, very slowly.

The silence became so uncomfortable that Nan said,

‘Have you heard about the ghost, Sergeant? The one they call Cecilia? She was a nun that got walled up in the old priory – left there to die…’

But the Sergeant continued to stare at the switchboard in silence. She was so browned off that the last thing she wanted to hear about was a stupid bloody ghost!

It seemed that eight-thirty – or 0830 hrs BST -was the magic time and it was as if all those who lived at Heronflete had arisen, bathed and eaten breakfast, and were ready to do whatever it was they had come to Heronflete to do. When both Evie and Nan had breakfasted and Sergeant James had left for the cookhouse, a disc on the switchboard fell. It was No.5. Picking up a plug she pushed it into the hole beneath No.5, said ‘Switchboard’, very clearly and firmly, and was asked for an outside line.

She pushed in the corresponding plug, said, ‘You’re thrrrrrough.’ Then she turned triumphantly to Nan. ‘We’re in business, old love!’

‘Who was it?’

‘Extension five – a man, for an outside line.’

‘What’s he talking about? Have a listen, Evie?’

‘You reckon?’ After all, they were alone. ‘I shouldn’t, you know…’

‘Ar. Be a devil!’

Evie said, ‘Ssssh, then,’ and placed the palm of her hand over the mouthpiece of her headset. Slowly and carefully so as not to make even the smallest click, she pushed a switch forward.

‘Ha! Wouldn’t you know it, Morrissey! They’ve got the scrambler on!’

‘What’s that, when it’s at home?’

‘Some clever-dick device to distort sound so that anybody tapping in on a phone call just hears gobbledygook. Sensible, I suppose, when you think that a spy could climb a telegraph pole and listen in to any conversation he wanted. They do it all the time, I know that for a fact.’

‘Ar,’ Nan nodded. ‘Amazin’ what them Jairmans get up to.’

‘Don’t worry. We do it, too. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that lot,’ she nodded towards the green baize door, ‘aren’t up to something similar.’

‘Climbing telegraph poles, you mean?’ Nan was disappointed.

‘No, but they might be listening in. Monitoring air waves, I mean. They might have operators searching for anything they heard in Morse code and taking it down. Telegraphists.’

‘Like Carrie’s feller?’

‘Yes, though I think he’s still in barracks, waiting for a ship. Carrie says he’s not best pleased about it.’

‘Hmm. What do you make of that romance, Evie?’

‘None of my business. The fact that Carrie doesn’t wear her ring is neither here nor there. I never had an engagement ring. We used the money to open a bank account for when the war is over. But Carrie often gets her hands dirty and greasy. You can’t blame her.’

‘Yes, but -’ Nan bit on her lip, deciding against telling Evie that Carrie wasn’t absolutely sure she wanted to get married just yet and said instead, ‘Well, if I had a ring, I’d wear it! Not that anybody’s offered yet.’

‘Give it time, Nan. You’re young enough. Have a bit of fun before you settle down.’

And nan was about to say that chance would be a fine thing when, just as the sergeant opened the door, one of the teleprinters came to life with a loud clatter.

‘Hey up, Sergeant! A signal!’

They watched as figures in groups of four clicked themselves into columns. They flew across the page.

‘That’s a good operator on the other end.’ The sergeant nodded her approval.

The typing stopped.

‘Go on then, Morrissey. Give them a receipt.’

So Nan looked at the wall clock then typed R 0858B/3/9/41 NM, then tore off the message and handed it to the sergeant.

Now she really was a teleprinter operator! Her eyes shone, her cheeks pinked. And one day Nan Morrissey too would be a good operator!

‘Hm. HF4 V ZAA. That’s Heronflete from ZAA. So who the heck is ZAA?’ the sergeant frowned.

She pressed the bell beside the hatch, placed the signal in the out-tray, then waited until a hand took it, clucking at the stupidity of a signals office that didn’t need a sergeant to run it. And she longed for the busy office she had left where sergeants had a mess of their own and didn’t have to share a gate lodge with privates. And she missed squad drill; girls marching, arms swinging, responding like automatons to commands! But most of all, she missed Joe; missed him so much it was like a pain inside her and what was far, far worse, the cold, stark certainty that she would never see him again.

‘Sergeant!’

‘Yes, Turner…?’

Monica James tore herself from the memory of a kiss that had been a last goodbye.

‘Take a look at this!’ The switchboard was criss-crossed with cords and plugs in holes. Heronflete had come to life. ‘I – er – I listened in to the first one; an outside line. It was scrambled.’

‘Hmm. Try an internal call, Turner.’

Evie covered the mouthpiece and slid a key gently forward, then nodded.

‘They’re scrambled, too – even inside Heronflete.’

‘Which only goes to show that something just might going on in there.’

She nodded towards the green baize door, all at once disliking it, because if the Army girls -herself included – were to be treated like a load of mindless morons who couldn’t be trusted to keep their mouths shut, then the sooner she was out of this place, the better! It made her think that maybe volunteering for service overseas might be the best way out – a new start, perhaps?

The bell buzzed again. She walked to the in-tray to pick up a signal, in code.

‘Right then, Morrissey – here’s one for you to send…’

It gave no clue; was merely prefixed Attention of C in CWA. A pencilled note attached with a paperclip instructed Send to LPL CWA.

The sergeant searched the route-map on the wall that gave all Army teleprinter stations. LPL CWA was not on it, but who damn-well cared!

Nan secured the signal to the holder in front of her, then began to tap the spacebar to alert Central Switchboard – wherever it was – that Heronflete had a signal for someone who was a Commander-in-Chief – that much she deduced without too much effort – but where LPL and WA were, no one was going to tell her.

It bothered her not one bit. Nan Morrissey was sending her first secretive signal; she was at war!

It made her glow with happiness. And for a bonus, she reminded herself yet again that tomorrow was pay day. How good could life get!

* * *

‘I’ll be doing the shift-run in ten minutes, Freddy,’ Carrie called. ‘You’ll have to wait for your tea till I get back!’

Pick up B-shift at Priest’s Lodge at 1350 hours, deliver them to the signals office, wait outside for A-shift – Evie and Nan – and drive them back to Southgate. It was a piece of cake, though it might make a change, she thought, if she were to get some real driving in. On proper roads.

Lenice and Ailsa made up B-shift. Lenice Cooper’s uniform was still in need of alteration but she vowed it would stay that way until she went on long leave when her uncle, a time-served tailor’s assistant, could make a proper job of it. Lenice, she had insisted, was not an unusual name at all, but the feminine of Leonard, which was her father’s name.

Ailsa Seaton was fair and pretty with a pink and white complexion. Carrie thought she seemed so fragile she should have been named Rose, or something delicately floral. Ailsa was Scottish and homesick for Edinburgh and hid behind Lenice’s forceful personality.

Carrie would not, she had quickly decided, cross swords with Lenice who was a bit Bolshie, and was glad the lord had been booted out of his dirty big house!

Yet it took all sorts to make a world, Carrie thought, and all sorts and shapes and sizes to make up the Auxiliary Territorial Service, which was beginning to have its good points.

She called a goodbye to Freddy and Norm who grunted from beneath the bonnet of the officers’ car, and thought about Jeffrey’s letter which had been cheerful and optimistic. Jeffrey’s draft chit into the real Navy – the pusser Navy, he called it – had come through and he told her not to write to Barracks again, and wait until she heard from him.

I know the name of my ship, but had best not tell you in a letter, or the censor will cut it out. Sufficient to say that by the time you get this I shall be on my way at last.

Thanks for yours, which arrived this morning.

In haste and high delight. Take care of yourself. I love you.

Jeffrey

Carrie tooted a goodbye as she left the stable yard. The afternoon was pleasant. September days were quite something; still warm, yet without the blazing heat of summer. A mellow time; a small Indian Summer before Autumn finaily gave way to winter. Which made her wonder how it would be when the snows came and they had to get from Southgate to the motor pool and the cookhouse and the ablutions. Would they be issued with gumboots, or would Sergeant James have got her way by then, and have them all in a more conveniently placed Nissen hut? With a coke stove, of course.

But she would worry about leaving Southgate when she had to. Right now it was a delight to be driving on the estate roads, making for Priest’s Lodge where, she hoped, Lenice and Ailsa would be waiting at the gate.

Carrie thought about Sergeant James who had been on duty since early morning and wondered how long her shifts would be and if they had managed to work out a meals rota. But that was up to the sergeant, whose dislike of the way things were at Heronflete plainly showed.

‘Nothing to do with you, Private Tiptree,’ Carrie said to the hen pheasant that ran across the lane ahead of her, then made cheerfully for Priest’s Lodge.

‘Have you eaten, then?’ she asked of B-shift as they climbed into the back of the truck.

‘Of course. At half-twelve, though it’s a heck of a trudge to the cook-house and back,’ Lenice grumbled. ‘Mind, it’ll be a whole lot worse when it rains, had you thought about that, Tiptree?’

‘N-no.’ Carrie stared ahead, deciding not to mention she had gone one better, and thought about snow! ‘But we’ve got our capes – we’ll be all right.’ Lenice had the makings of a barrack-room lawyer, Carrie frowned; one who always complained – often and loudly. ‘And it hasn’t rained yet. This far, the weather has been lovely. Looking forward to your first shift,’ she asked over her shoulder, turning right at Southgate, making for the huddle of buildings ahead.

‘Suppose so. Anything to relieve the boredom, though why I let myself be inveigled into a capitalist war I’ll never know!’

Carrie almost told her it was to fight the Fascists, who were far more evil than capitalists, but instead she said,

‘Now you know political opinions are forbidden so if you don’t mind, Lenice, I want none of them in this truck whilst I’m in charge!’

They completed the journey in silence, then Ailsa whispered, ‘Thanks,’ as they got down.

It was the first word she had spoken and Carrie thought how awful it must be for her at Priest’s and it made her all the more glad that she shared with Evie and Nan who were absolute loves.

‘Had you thought,’ Nan said with relish, ‘Priest’s will be doing the early shift in the morning as well, and that Evie and I will be off till tomorrow, at two? Don’t know whether to get up for breakfast, or have a lovely lie in.’

‘Yes, but Priest’s will be free for a trip into Lincoln on Saturday. Norm told me there’ll be a transport laid on.’

‘So will you be driving, Carrie?’ Evie looked up from her bedmaking and the meticulous envelope corners she was tucking in.

‘No one has said anything to me.’ Now Norm had agreed to relieve her of the evening shift, Carrie supposed she might have no choice in the matter. ‘I’ll be available from two, so maybe I will. I’ll ask Sergeant James to sort it with Freddy.’ She had learned that orders came from above and you didn’t go over the head of anyone with rank up.

‘Did you see the notice in the NAAFI – a dance, on Friday night?’

‘What – here?’ None of the soldiers she had seen at Heronflete looked a likely dancing partner. Nan frowned.

‘No. At the aerodrome. Invitation to the Sergeant’s Mess. Dancing from seven till ten-thirty. Transport laid on. If we’re going, we won’t be back here till eleven, at least. We’ll have to put in for a late pass,’ Evie warned.

‘Then I’m game,’ Nan beamed, thoughts of a real night out pleasing her. ‘Will they have a decent band, do you think?’

‘They very often do, in the RAF. Should think it’ll be a good hop,’ Evie said.’ Before I came here, I went to quite a few RAF dances. They often lay on beer and sandwiches.’

‘And they send transport? But will it be worth their while,’ Carrie frowned, ‘for just the three of us, because I don’t suppose the sergeant will be going.’

‘They’ll probably pick up in the villages around – civilian girls, to make up numbers. Is Friday night on, then?’ Evie wanted to know.

And Carrie and Nan said it was, and had anybody realised it would be their first night out for ages and ages?

‘OK, then. Leave the passes to me,’ Evie said. ‘And I’m going to the washroom to press my best uniform and wash some stockings. Anybody coming?’

But Carrie said she had to write to her mother, and Nan said she was going to take off her collar and tie and sit outside at the back in the sun.

To think, she supposed, about how smashing it was at Heronflete, even if they were a bit of a funny lot. And maybe to give a little thought to the grave marker, and how she would be able to find it if they weren’t allowed up the drive, much less within a hundred yards of the house. Because that’s where they’d buried Cecilia, Grandad had said.

My word, but being in the ATS gave you a lot to sit in the sun and think about!

Nan lay on her bed, hands behind head, watching as Carrie put on her make-up. She was very lovely, Nan thought; a nose every bit as perfect as Hedy Lamarr’s and high cheekbones, like Lana Turner’s. And her hair was thick and fair – more honey-coloured than blonde. But of more importance than Carrie’s enviable beauty was the ring. On the third finger of her left hand.

‘I’ll wear it,’ she had said, ‘if we go dancing, or anything,’ and there it was, sparkling and flashing; three diamonds that must have cost every bit of twenty pounds.

‘Something the matter?’ Carrie met Nan’s gaze in the mirror and turned, smiling.

‘No. Was just thinking that’s a smashin’ ring.’

‘Mm. It feels a bit strange, wearing it again. Wonder where Jeffrey is.’

‘Maybe on his new ship. Maybe sailing off into the sunset.’

‘He could be, but I’m sure he’ll be with the Home Fleet. If his ship was going foreign, he’d have been given leave. And talking about leave, we’ll have got three months’ service behind us, soon, and you’re supposed to get leave every three months, don’t forget. Must ask Evie about putting in for it.’

‘You’ll be goin’ home, to Yorkshire?’

‘Yes, and I’m quite looking forward to it. Be nice to wear civvies again and sleep in, mornings – and see Mum, of course. She’s missing me a lot, and it’s going to be awful for her when the bad weather comes.’

‘Why?’ Nan watched as Carrie removed Kirby grips from her pin-curled hair.

‘Well, we’ve got a little car and up until now I’ve always done the driving. When petrol was rationed, we decided we could manage on foot or on bikes in summer, to save our petrol coupons for winter. And Mum can’t drive…’

‘Then you’ll have to give her a few lessons, when you go home.’

‘Might be a good idea, though if she’d wanted to drive, she’d have taken it up before now. Mind, if she feels confident, it should be all right. At least she won’t have to pass a driving test.’

Tests had been suspended for the duration, which was very convenient, Carrie thought. All you did, now, was to apply for a licence, then start driving, which her mother would refuse point blank to do. She knew it! She already hated the blackout; driving a car in it when winter came wouldn’t even be considered. But it was too late now to worry about her mother living in an isolated village miles away from shops of any size; it was only one of the things she hadn’t taken into account in her haste to leave Nether Hutton.

‘Hi, folks!’ Evie’s bedroom door opened. ‘Got your war paint on, then, ’cause we’ll have to get a move on. The transport is picking us up at Priest’s at seven. Aren’t you putting your lipstick on, Nan?’

‘Haven’t got one. The Queer One didn’t allow make-up. Said it was common.’

‘Why do you call your stepmother The Queer One?’ Carrie asked as they walked towards Priest’s Lodge. ‘Hasn’t she got a name?’

‘Yes. It’s Ida. She said I was to call her mother, but it wasn’t on.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she wasn’t my mother. And she didn’t like me and I didn’t like her. It’s why I shoved off when dad died. No way was I stoppin’ with that one, and when I’m due for leave I’ll go to Auntie Mim’s, even if I have to sleep on the parlour sofa. Mind, I just might ask for my travel warrant to be made out to Edinburgh. Always wanted to go to Scotland…’

The possibilities, thought Nan, were heady and endless.

The RAF transport they shared with five civilian girls came to a stop at the guard room of the RAF bomber station.

‘Five civvies and three Army girls,’ called the driver, who was a member of the Womens’ Auxiliary Air Force – an aircraftwoman, or a WAAF, Carrie supposed – envying the skill with which she handled the large transport. ‘For the Mess dance.’

The red and white barrier was lifted and behind them, as they drove through, they could see outlines of huge hangars, wooden buildings and rows of Nissen huts. They stopped outside one of them.

‘Here you are, girls! Sergeants’ Mess. And they aren’t on ops tonight, so there’ll be plenty of partners,’ the driver grinned as she let down the tail board. ‘Sounds like it’s already started.’

They walked towards the sound of the music and drum beats, then pushed through the thick blackout curtain that covered the door to be met with wolf whistles of relief, Evie thought, at the arrival of eight more partners, because, apart from the WAAFs and three land girls already there, women were outnumbered by two to one. There would be no wallflowers here tonight! They threaded through the dancers to find empty chairs where a lone sergeant sat.

‘Hi!’ Nan beamed. ‘Smashin’ band you’ve got.’

‘Er – y-yes.’ The sergeant blushed, then stared ahead. ‘G-good…’

The band was playing very professionally. Shouldn’t wonder, Nan thought, if some of them had been musicians in civvy street. Her feet began to tap and she smiled at the airman at her side, wishing he would ask her onto the floor.

The music ended with a roll of drums, the couples returned to the chairs that lined the hut.

It wasn’t much of a place, Nan thought, hoping that Sergeant James never got her heart’s desire. The windows were already thickly curtained, cigarette smoke hung lazily beneath the curved tin roof.

‘Is this your billet,’ she asked the man beside her.

‘’N-no. Our m-mess hall, actually.’

‘I live in a gate lodge,’ Nan confided. ‘Real cute.’ She dropped her voice, leaning closer. ‘At Heronflete Priory.’

‘Mm. Know it. F-flown over it loads of – of t-times. B-big place, like a castle. And sorry for the imp – imp…’

‘Stammer?’ Nan offered.

‘Y-yes. But only when I t-talk to girls.’

‘Why? Girls don’t bite.’

‘I blush, too. It p-puts them off.’

Nan turned to gaze at him. Young, like herself. Fair-haired and blue-eyed. And tall. Good to look at, really.

‘Well, it hasn’t put me off, so you’d better tell me your name.’

‘Charles Lawson, though most of the blokes call me Charlie.’

‘Hm. No. Charles is too stuffy and Charlie makes you sound a real – well you know…Think I shall call you Chas. And I’m called Nancy Morrissey, though I prefer Nan.’

‘Hi!’ He offered a hand, which Nan took. ‘N-nice to meet you.’

‘Likewise. And I think you’d better ask me up to dance when the music starts, ’cause if you don’t, somebody else is goin’ to ask me, and I want to talk to you.’

‘You do, Nan? You really do?’ His cheeks were bright red. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t d-dance…’

‘Why ever not! Don’t you like dancin’?’

‘I’d like to try it, but I can’t pluck up the courage to ask. By the t-time I’ve said I’m sorry, I can’t dance but would they like to t-try one with me some other bloke has nabbed them.’

‘But you’re talkin’ to me, and what’s more you and me’s havin’ the next dance, OK? I mean, you’re never goin’ to learn, are you, if you never set foot on the floor.’

‘You’ll be sorry!’ He smiled for all that, and it was a lovely smile, Nan thought. Nice, white teeth and even, like a film star’s.

‘We’ll see,’ she smiled back, ‘and shh…’

‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ The pianist got to his feet, placed his pint pot on top of the piano. ‘Please take your partners for a Bumps-a-daisy.’

There was a loud groan, but Nan took not one bit of notice and taking his hand, walked onto the empty floor.

‘Look at our Nan,’ Evie grinned. ‘Think she’s clicked.’

‘Yes, and he’s not bad looking either. Hope no one asks me to do this one,’ Carrie shrugged. ‘It’s such a silly dance.’

‘Now, this is a good one for a beginner,’ Nan beamed. ‘It’s just a bit of fun. You clap hands, clap each other’s hands, do the bumps-a-daisy bit, and then you do four waltz steps, then start all over again. C’mon, now.’

They clapped hands, slapped hands then bumped bottoms.

‘That’s it! Now – one two three, one two three. Just follow me, Chas. You’re doin’ fine.’

He was. The waltzing came easily; bumping bottoms with a young ATS girl with mischief in her eyes was something he would never have dared to do.

Other couples took the floor. One waltzed past them, arms waving and said,

‘What ho, Charlie! Got yourself a popsie, then?’

‘Take no notice.’ Chas had gone beetroot red, again. ‘He’s a bit loud, that’s all…’

‘Is he now?’ Nan manoeuvred them alongside the offending male and his partner. ‘Excuse me!’ she hissed, narrowing her eyes, stepping to the side. ‘Oh, dear, he’s tripped!’ she giggled, before gliding away for the next bottom-bumping.

‘Did you like that,’ she asked when the dance was over.

‘I did. I really did. Pity about old Clarry, though.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Clarence Harris. The one who skidded on the floor.’

‘Mm. Serve him right. Didn’t like him.’

‘Why not, Nan?’

‘’Cause he called me a popsie and he called you Charlie and grinning all over his face like he’d said something clever. He asked for it!’

‘Nan! You didn’t – deliberately trip him, I mean?’

‘No. Only he was so busy sniggering with that blonde he was dancin’ with that he didn’t notice his left foot got a bit near my right one, and down he went! Arse over tip!’

‘Oh, my goodness! Nan, you are wicked and an absolute love and can I please have the next dance with you?’

‘You can, Chas. You can,’ she lifted her eyes to his and smiled. And did he but know it, bless him, he hadn’t stammered once since they first bumped bottoms! ‘And I think you are very nice, too…’

When they had had the last waltz together, doing one-two-three, one-two-three in the corner of the hut, Chas said, ‘I’ll walk you to the transport – if I may? This your jacket?’

Nan nodded, taking her cap and gloves from the sleeve she had pushed them into, holding back her arms as he helped her into it. Then she put on her cap, slipped her arm through his and left the hut.

They stood, blinking into the darkness. You always did that, when stepping into the blackout; give your eyes a few seconds to get adjusted. Then they made for the dim outline of the transport.

‘You will ring me, Nan? You’ve got the aerodrome number?’ He had written it on a page in his diary and she’d tucked it into her skirt pocket. ‘If the operator tells you she isn’t accepting incoming calls, it means we’ll be flying. Security, you know. I won’t be able to ring you, either. And you will remember to get the number of your NAAFI phone for me, so I can ring you when you aren’t on shift?’

‘I’ll remember. Promise. Well, g’night, Chas. Thanks for tonight.’ They were beside the transport now.

‘Goodnight, Nan Morrissey – and the pleasure was all mine.’ He leaned closer and kissed her cheek. ‘You will phone – give me your number?’

‘I said I would…’ That had been her first goodnight kiss. On her cheek. It wasn’t good enough. She took his face in her hands, then rose on tiptoe to kiss his mouth, softly, slowly, gently. ‘And you take care, mind, next time you’re flying.’

‘I will, Nan. Promise.’

Oh, too right he would! And he’d get home in one piece, too, now that he had Nan Morrissey to come back to.

She was lost to him then in the darkness but he heard her laugh as she climbed aboard. Then he said her name softly as if it were a talisman. ‘Nan. Nan Morrissey. And you take care too, darling girl…’

When the blackout curtains had been drawn at Southgate Lodge and the lights switched on and door bolts pushed home, Carrie said, ‘A smashing dance, eh? Great band.’ ‘Plenty of partners,’ Evie beamed, ‘though someone not two feet from me got herself an admirer, or I’m very much mistaken. Well, come on then Morrissey – tell!’

‘Ar. He’s luvley.’ Nan took off her tie and collar then unfastened her shirt buttons, eager to tell them about the sergeant who was a navigator in a Wellington bomber. ‘But he can’t dance, see, so I offered. He’s very light on his feet so he’ll be all right, with a bit more practice.’

‘You’re going to see him again, Nan?’ ‘Hope so. He gave me the aerodrome number so I can ring him in the sergeants’ mess. I couldn’t tell him what our NAAFI number was, so I’ll give it to him, when I ring. He’s called Charles Lawson by the way, and he talks real luvely. Y’know – like a frewt.’

‘Like a what,’ asked Carrie who was winding her hair into pincurls.

‘A frewt. FRUIT.’ She spelled it out. ‘Posh, like…’

‘I see.’ Gravely, Carrie logged up yet another Liverpudlian word.

‘Mind, I don’t call him Charles ’cause it doesn’t suit him. The fellers in his mess call him Charlie, but that doesn’t suit him, either. So it’s Chas. Mind, he blushes and stammers something awful when he talks to girls but he was all right, once him and me got to know each other. He kissed me goodnight and oh, hecky thump! I need to go down the garden! Anybody coming?’ She pulled her greatcoat over her pyjamas and pushed her feet into her slippers.

‘Not me,’ Evie grinned.

‘Nor me, but leave the back door open so we can hear you scream!’ Carrie teased. ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Take the torch. You’ll be all right.’

Nan stuck her nose in the air, closed the bedroom door behind her, switched off the kitchen light, then opened the outside door.

Around her, all was stillness, then she blinked her eyes and made her way down the garden path. And of course she was all right! She put Cecilia from her mind and thought instead of Chas, who was lovely and talked posh – and who wanted to see her again.

‘Aaah,’ she sighed softly into the night, wondering if Chas was thinking about her. She hoped he was.

‘You mustn’t tease Nan,’ Evie scolded, putting on her pyjamas. ‘She’s only a kid, remember, and it’s up to us to look after her.’

‘She’ll be all right,’ Carrie laughed. ‘She’s in such a state of bemusement that I don’t think she’d notice if she fell over the nun! She’s real taken with the airman.’

‘I think so, too. After all, I don’t think she’s had many goodnight kisses! I hope, when she rings him, he’ll ask her out.’

‘I think he will. More to the point, though,’ Carrie frowned, ‘Nan works shifts, so every other night won’t be on – and Chas flies bombing ops. Fixing dates might be a bit awkward. But did you enjoy tonight, Evie? Got plenty of partners, didn’t we?’

‘Mm. It was good, getting out again. We’ll have to try to arrange a trip to Lincoln.’

‘I could drive, if Freddy’ll let me take the pickup. Or maybe Norm would take us, and we could hitch a lift back.’

‘I’ll have a word with the sergeant. Next Saturday it’ll have to be – when we finish shift at two. And hi! You all right?’ she asked of Nan. ‘Locked the back door?’

‘Yes, I have. And was you talkin’ about me?’

‘We were,’ Evie said frankly. ‘We said we thought your airman was very nice, and we were talking ways and means about getting to Lincoln next Saturday so bear it in mind, when you’re fixing a date with your Chas.’

‘Mm. I will. Mind, he might not be able to get out, though I’d still like to go to town. Maybe,’ she said almost nonchalantly, ‘see if I can find a shop that’s got a lipstick under the counter.’

Carrie’s eyes met Evie’s. Carrie winked slowly, saying not a word, and Evie bit her lip on a smile. Nan looking for a lipstick? So she had fallen for the airman, bless the girl. Then she hoped with all her heart that Nan wasn’t storing up heartache because fliers had a habit of not coming back from ops.

‘Think I’ll go on a lipstick hunt, too,’ Evie said. ‘And I wouldn’t mind a jar of cold cream, either – or a tin of Nivea.’ And she mustn’t think about Nan’s young man not coming back from night raids over Germany. Not ever! Absently, she closed her eyes and fondled her wedding ring.

Take care Bob darling, wherever you are and God, if you could, take care of Nan’s Chas and Carrie’s Jeffrey. And oh, damn and blast this war!

Six

Letters for Southgate Lodge; four for Evie – redirected – one for Nan, and three for Carrie.

‘It won’t be long,’ Evie smiled, ‘before they come to me, here. Bob should have my new address by now. Mm. Don’t know whether to gobble them up, now, or to save them for when I come off shift tonight – read them before I go to sleep.’

‘Bet you can’t save them that long,’ Carrie laughed, opening the letter she knew to be from Jeffrey’s mother.

My dear Caroline,

News is very thin on the ground, here in Nether Hutton. The days grow shorter and the swallows are twittering on the telephone lines, ready to fly away. Taking summer with them, I suppose.

I called on your mother, yesterday. She seems very low and the dreadful cough she seems not able to throw off is not helping. But don’t worry. I will keep an eye on her for you

I hope soon to hear from Jeffrey and that he has got a ship. He seems very restless, in barracks. I do so hope you will be able to marry on his next leave.

‘Jeffrey’s mother,’ Caroline said to no one in particular, ‘says mother is depressed and can’t seem to get rid of her cold. She didn’t tell me she had one.’

‘Mothers never do,’ Evie soothed. ‘And isn’t that a letter from Jeffrey?’

‘Mm. It’ll be his new address.’ The envelope carried the red stamp of the censor. She slit it with her thumb and pulled out a single sheet of notepaper.

Darling Carrie,

My new address is Communications Mess, HMS Adventurer c/o GPO London.

When I was in barracks I had a photograph taken in uniform. Have you got it, yet?

In haste. Write back at once. Love you,

‘Jeffrey’s sent a photograph.’ More carefully Carrie opened the brown manila envelope with PLEASE DO NOT BEND written large on top. ‘Mm. Not bad. Looks as if he’s been to the Navy barber…’

‘Why isn’t he smiling?’ Nan frowned.

‘Probably because, like most men, he doesn’t like having his photo taken. He’s quite nice, actually, to look at,’ she said defensively. ‘He’s got thick black hair, though you can’t see it for the cap’…His cap was pulled well forward, regulation style, over his forehead.

All my love. Jeffrey. Nan scanned the inscription then handed the photograph to Evie. ‘Don’t you ever call him Jeff?’

‘No. Never. His mother doesn’t like it.’

‘Pity for her! Ah, well, I’m nippin’ up to the NAAFI to phone Chas. Best go while it’s quiet. Anybody want anythin’ ?’

‘You could ask if they’ve got cigarettes under the counter.’ Carrie did not smoke, but they could generally get a ten-packet in the NAAFI, and she bought hers to give to Norm and Freddie, who did smoke. ‘And Lenice said she’d heard that once a month, they get a make-up allocation. You just might ask when it’s going to be. After all, you are in need of a lipstick, Nan…’

Nan walked up the lane, arms swinging, a little pulse of pleasure beating behind her nose. Modeley 147 – Sergeants’ Mess was what she must ask for – after taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. Because she was just a little apprehensive, worrying that Chas might not be there. Or he might be there and pretend not to be if he didn’t want to speak to her because she had been a bit fresh, come to think of it, kissing him on the mouth. Girls shouldn’t kiss fellers – not when they hardly knew them.

The NAAFI was empty. There was no queue at the telephone. Nan placed three pennies and a sixpenny piece on top of the coinbox, picked up the receiver, asking for the number.

‘Place three pennies in the box please, caller.’ Nan obliged and was asked to wait, then, ‘I have 147 on the line. Press button A.’ Nan pressed. The pennies fell with a clatter.

The aerodrome answered which meant Chas wasn’t flying tonight. And dammit, she was on shift!

‘Can I speak to Sergeant Charles Lawson,’ she asked, surprised how quickly she was connected.

‘Charlie! The call you’re waiting for! Your popsie!’

‘Hello, Nan,’ he said, almost immediately.

‘Thanks for ringing.’

‘You’ve been waitin’ for this call, Chas?’ ‘’Fraid so. Even though I was sure you wouldn’t ring. Look, Nan, you’re working tonight, Monday and Wednesday – right?’

‘Yes. What about you?’

‘Not sure, but I reckon Sunday night just might be on. That OK for you?’

‘Should be.’ She giggled. ‘Reckon we’re goin’ to be like Box and Cox, you and me. Where, on Sunday? What time?’

‘Do you know the Black Bull at Little Modeley?’ Nan knew it. And grandad who drank best bitter there, an’ all!

‘The Black Bull it is, then Chas. At seven?’

‘Right! And if I don’t make it, will you forgive me and ring me after twelve, on Monday? And what’s your NAAFI number?’

‘Modeley 618, but it might be awkward, ringing me. If I’m not there, I mean, they can’t take messages. Just fingers crossed, eh, for Sunday?’

‘Fingers crossed – and N-nan – take care, dear girl.’

‘And you, too. See you, Chas…’

Reluctantly, she put down the receiver, wishing they could have talked some more – at least till the threepence ran out. Local calls were easy to get. Not like trunk calls you had to wait ages and ages for, and were only allowed three minutes before the operator interrupted and told you your time was up. Rarely was anyone given longer. The war, of course. Even the telephones were at it, the Armed Forces being given priority over the poor old civilians.

She walked to the counter. ‘Any ciggies,’ she asked of the ginger-haired assistant.

‘Any money?’ He dipped beneath the counter and brought out a packet. ‘A bob gets you ten!’

‘Oooh! Thanks, chum.’ Nan parted with a shilling and gave him a wink. ‘And there’s a rumour goin’ round that you might have makeup to sell.’

‘News to me,’ he shrugged, ‘but you’d better ask the lady when she’s on duty, tonight. She’ll know…’

Nan hurried back to Southgate. No lipsticks and suchlike in the NAAFI, but she had a date. Sunday, at seven, at the Black Bull! Quite a way to walk, but what the heck? If Chas was waiting there, it would be worth every step of the way. If. Oh, please he wouldn’t be flying? Not on her first date?’

With a frown, Carrie read what she had written. Just like her mother not to tell her she was ill; just like Jeffrey’s mother to make sure she knew!

Why didn’t you tell me you were poorly, mother? Please, please, phone Doc Smithson and ask him to call and give you a check-up. And ask him to give you a tonic, too.

There is not a lot of news. Jeffrey, as you will probably know has got a ship at last. HMS Adventurer – home waters, I hope. He sent a photograph. He looks very stern, in uniform.

Should she tell her mother about the dance at RAF Modeley and what a good time they had had? Perhaps not. It didn’t seem right to be enjoying yourself when your mother was ill -and alone.

Am going to get something to eat, now, before I take the late shift on duty and collect the earlies. This is just a short note to let you know how sorry I am you are not well, and to beg you to send for the doctor. In haste, but with much, much love.

Her mother – or Jeffrey’s mother – made her feel bad because she had joined up instead of getting married so she need not leave home to do her war work. But she had left home and would only be back to Jackmans Cottage for a week every three months for as long as the war lasted.

Quickly she addressed the envelope. She would post it when she went for her meal when it would have every chance of being on its way by tomorrow.

She looked out of the window and saw a flush-cheeked Nan hurrying up the path, doubtless with news of the utmost importance to tell! It made her wish she were nearly eighteen again, and going on her first real date. But she was twenty-one, or would be at the end of October.

She arranged a smile on her lips as Nan burst into the room and tossed her the cigarettes.

‘That’s a shillin’ you owe me, Tiptree, and guess what! I’m meetin’ Chas at the Black Bull on Sunday.’

There was just nothing to say in reply to such bright-eyed, breathless happiness, so Carrie said,

‘Thanks a lot,’ and gave Nan two sixpenny pieces without further comment, because she knew she had never felt that way on her first real date – nor on any of the many that followed.

‘Fingers crossed, mind – flying, and all that.’

Nan collapsed on her bed and lay, hands behind head, gazing at the ceiling as if, Carrie thought, Chas’s face were up there, and smiling down at her.

‘Nan,’ she said softly. ‘You know I’m very happy about you and Chas, but don’t get hurt, will you? There’s a war on, don’t forget?’

‘Don’t think I don’t know.’ Nan sat bolt upright, the contentment gone from her face. ‘And it looks like every date we have will depend on that war, damn and blast it! And he mightn’t even be there, on Sunday. He could be flying ops!’

‘So you’ll walk all the way to the Black Bull, and he mightn’t show – then walk all the way back? And it’s getting dark earlier now, Nan.’

‘It’s all I can do. If they suddenly tell them they’re off bombing, he can’t give me a quick ring, can he? Their switchboard shuts down. No calls out and no calls allowed in. Security, see?’

‘Oh, Nan Morrissey! Your love affair is going to be as complicated as mine,’ Carrie laughed. ‘You and Chas and me and Jeffrey trying to get together, I mean. But if Chas shows on Sunday, surely he’ll walk you home?’

‘Of course he will. Suppose, if I’d told him how to get here, he’d have met me at Priest’s. I was just so glad to be talkin’ to him that I didn’t think. But don’t worry about me, Carrie. I’m a big girl, now.’

‘Mm. Old enough to take the King’s shilling so I reckon you’re grown up enough to go on dates without Evie and me watching over you like mother hens. Sorry, love.’

‘Don’t be sorry, Carrie. I like being fussed over. It’s nice when somebody cares about you – honest it is. And I’m going to give this place a good turn out, so you’d better get yourself back to the stab-leyard. And if you see Evie in the washroom, tell her not to hurry back.’

She wanted Southgate to herself, Nan thought; wanted to think about and sigh over Chas. And if it meant getting into her horrible brown overall and sweeping and mopping and dusting the place, then it would be worth it, because Chas was very nice to think about, and sigh over. And oh, please, let him be there at seven tomorrow night, and not flying into danger in a bomber?

‘I’m pushing off now to get some supper,’ Sergeant James said to Evie. ‘There isn’t a lot of traffic – you can manage without me, Turner, till the end of the shift.’ It was more of an order than a question. ‘I’ll be back before ten, to hand over to the night man.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Evie smiled, wondering how much longer Sergeant James could keep up her long working day – six in the morning until ten at night, with only breaks for meals. Soon, maybe, she should talk about her having more time off. After all, Evie reasoned, she did have a stripe up and more than able to cope with anything the people behind the green baize door might throw at her. ‘See you about ten.’

‘So you’re in charge,’ Nan said when the sergeant had left for the cookhouse.

‘Yes I am, and since you don’t seem busy, how about putting the kettle on?’

Maybe then, Evie thought, they could have a chat about tomorrow night, and was Nan really thinking of walking the mile back alone, if her boyfriend didn’t show up, and to keep to the side of the road if she heard anything coming and not stick her thumb out for a lift. That was just asking for an accident. Things like that happened all the time in the blackout with motors only allowed dim lights to drive on.

She stared at the switchboard and thought, soberly, that soon they would have dark nights to endure; blackouts to be in place, in November, by late afternoon, and not one glimmer of light to be shown until next morning. Not even the lighting of a cigarette, out doors. And then there would be winter, and freezing billets and frost patterns on the insides of windows. It made her wonder if they dare light a fire at Southgate and if, on moonlit nights or nights bright with stars, anyone would notice the smoke puffing from the chimney.

‘Y’know,’ she said absently, ‘I was thinking that when the cold weather comes and we’re on late shift, we could boil up the kettle and fill our hot-water bottles.’

And Nan said it would be a good idea, but she didn’t have a hot-water bottle and surely Evie knew there were none in the shops, now that rubber was a commodity of war, and anything made from it non-existent, almost.

‘Well, next time I go on leave I shall bring mine – and the little camping stove and kettle. I’m not looking forward to winter, Nan.’

‘Who is?’ Nan blew on her tea. ‘But what I’m more worried about is tomorrow night – that Chas will be able to make it, I mean.’

‘Yes – but if he doesn’t, you will be careful walking home on your own?’ Evie seized the opportunity. ‘Keep to the side of the road, because it’ll be getting dark, don’t forget.’

‘Don’t worry – I will. But I don’t even want to think that he mightn’t be there.’

‘You’re very taken with him, aren’t you Nan?’

‘We-e-ll, he is the first feller that’s asked me out. And he’s not a bit common and he talks luv’ly. He’ll be smashin’ when I’ve taught him to dance. He gets a bit scared talking to girls, so he’s never plucked up the courage.’

‘But he asked you!’

‘Nah! It was me asked him. I told him that if he didn’t get up on the floor with me, then some other feller would ask me – and I wanted to dance with him.’

‘Nothing if not direct,’ Evie laughed.

‘It’s the way us Liverpudlians are. Straight to the point. No messin’. I had a great time.’

‘I know. I was there, don’t forget! But you will be careful, Nan? You know what I mean?’

‘I think I do. And don’t worry. I didn’t come down with the last fall of snow, you know!’

And now they were back to snow again, Evie thought. And winter and sleeping with your undies under your pillow, to keep them warm.

‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘when Sergeant James will get the leave-roster going? I’m not due leave for two months yet, but you and Carrie and the two at Priest’s should be thinking about it before so very much longer.’

‘They told us when we first joined that leave was a privilege and not a God-given right.’

‘Yes, but you always get it, Nan. They like to throw rules and regulations at you, just to show you who’s boss. And someone,’ she grinned as a small round disc dropped, ‘is alive and kicking at the big house. Thought they must have gone into town tonight, to the flicks.’

She picked up a plug, pushed it in and said, ‘Switchboard.’

And Nan hugged her mug which was thick and white and shaped like a chamber pot and willed one of her teleprinters to shift itself and click out a signal.

‘I think,’ Evie said, ‘that it’s going to be one of those nights. There are times, I’ve found, when the war seems to take a breather for some peculiar reason. Ah, well, roll on ten o’clock…’

At ten minutes to ten, the green baize door opened and the Yeoman said, ‘Evening, ladies.’ He was dressed in his usual night rig and carried a notepad and pen, his tin-lid ashtray and a packet of cigarettes. ‘Busy?’

‘Nah. Boring, actually,’ Nan shrugged. ‘In fact, we decided that most of your lot must be out on the town, it bein’ Sat’day night. Packed up for the weekend, have they?’

‘Wouldn’t know. The high-ups don’t tell me anything. I’m not that important.’

‘Civilians, are they?’ Nan asked.

‘Some of them.’

‘So tell me, Yeoman, why don’t they have their own people looking after the teleprinters and switchboard? Why do they seem to need Army people to do it?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine, young lady,’ he said, walking into the kitchen. ‘Either of you want a cup of tea – and where is your sergeant, tonight?’

‘She’s here!’ They heard the door bang, then Monica James emerged from between the thick curtains covering it. ‘And why wasn’t this door bolted behind me when I left?’

‘Good evening, Sergeant. Tea?’ asked the Yeoman.

‘No thank you.’ She walked, shoulders stiff, to the switchboard. ‘Everything OK, Lance-Corporal?’

‘Fine. Nothing to report Sergeant.’

‘Transport’s waiting outside. Get your jackets on and off you go, then. And goodnight, Yeoman. See you at six…’

‘Night, then – but couldn’t we all be a little less formal. We’re all fighting the same war, after all. Couldn’t you and I throw caution to the winds and call each other Sarge and Yeo?’

He smiled, and it crinkled his eye corners and made him look much less serious, she thought. But still she said,

‘No thank you. As you said, we’re here to fight a war, so what would be the point in it? See you tomorrow – and bolt the door, please?’

Then she tugged her jacket straight, tweaked the peak of her cap and went to sit beside Carrie.

‘Well! The Navy’s laying on the charm. Call me Yeo, he said! But it isn’t on and don’t any of you forget it.’ She turned in her seat to glower at Evie and Nan. ‘They made it quite clear from the onset. Their lot doesn’t fraternise with our lot, so if they want to play cloak-and-dagger and treat us like we’re not to be trusted, then it’s OK by me!’

‘But Sergeant,’ Evie protested, ‘he is rather nice and he’s only trying to be friendly.’

‘Yes, an’ if we got to talking to him, maybe we’d find out what that lot are up to,’ Nan added.

‘They’ll tell us, if they want us to know. Now, do any of you want to stop off at the NAAFI for a hot drink?’

‘No thanks. We’ve been drinkin’ tea all night. An’ we’re on early shift, tomorrow. Best be off to bed. Thanks all the same,’ Nan said.

Nan Morrissey could not wait for tomorrow to come and for her shift to be over. Only then could she wash her hair, press her best uniform and polish her buttons. Then she would have a quick bite in the cookhouse and be off in the direction of Little Modeley and the Black Bull. And Chas, of course. Would be hell though, if he wasn’t waiting when she got there.

‘Well, that’s Private Morrissey on her way!’ Evie giggled. ‘Bless the girl, she was in a real dither. It’s her first real date.’

‘I know it is. She told me so. But – well – I wonder if I could have a word with you,’ Carrie hesitated.

‘Surely. I’ve written to Bob. Just got my bed to make up, then I’m all ears.’

‘It’s sort of – personal, Evie. About being married. Y’see, I can’t talk to my mother about it.’

‘Girls rarely can, I believe – talk to their mothers about things. So what’s bothering you? Getting wedding jitters?’

‘No. In fact I said to Jeffrey that I wouldn’t mind us being married in our uniforms – especially if it turns out to be a winter wedding. But it isn’t that, Evie. It’s what happens after that I’m worried about – and if you’d rather not talk about something – well – so personal, I’ll understand.’

‘Your wedding night, you mean? But haven’t you and he talked it over, yet? About whether you want children right away, or do you both want to wait till the war is over – things like that?’

‘I never even thought. Just don’t seem to be able to get past the when-it-happens-bit.’

‘You mean you’re worried about it? Oh, but you shouldn’t be. It’s wonderful, Carrie!’

‘Is it? Well, I didn’t think so…’ Carrie looked down at her hands.

‘So you and Jeffrey have been lovers?’

‘Lovers! Is that what you call it? And yes, we did it. He wanted to, so I let him. I just laid there, Evie, and looked at the ceiling, and when it was over I felt sick.’

‘Hey, come on now – don’t get upset. And remember, you don’t have to talk about it, though I think it’s best you do. Because loving, between two people, can be – should be – nothing short of breathtaking. It makes me go peculiar just thinking about it, and what I wouldn’t give right now to be somewhere with Bob for just an hour. And if it’s any comfort, Bob and I didn’t wait for our wedding night, either.’

‘Yes, but I bet you wanted to, Evie, and I didn’t…’

‘But why didn’t you talk to him about it, afterwards – tell him how you felt?’

‘What would have been the point?’ Red-cheeked, Carrie walked to the window, staring out, arms folded. ‘You don’t criticise Jeffrey. He’d throw a sulk. And anyway, I wanted him out of the house – before my mother got back, I told him. But all I wanted to do was wash myself all over.’

‘Well, the way I see it is that it’s a rum do if you can’t discuss things calmly and sensibly with the man you want to spend the rest of your life with – have his children, too. Was it really so awful, Carrie?’

‘No. Just not enjoyable, I suppose. I used to think that being able to do that whenever you wanted to must be really nice. But I suppose, if you want children – and I do – I’ll have to put up with things the way they are.’ She blew her nose loudly, then drew the curtains over the window. ‘Sorry if I embarrassed you, Evie. Tell you what – let’s nip up to the NAAFI – maybe have a half of shandy, or something? My treat?’

‘No thanks, Carrie. You and I need to talk and it’s best we do it here! Because you don’t have to put up with anything, you know. It should be an act of loving between you – and not you putting up with it. Sorry, love, but I have to say this – in my opinion, that kind of a marriage will be nothing short of a misery, for both of you! So let’s you and me have that talk, and then I suggest you write to Jeffrey and tell him what’s bothering you and how you can both put it right.’

‘Whaaat! And have someone here censor my letter – Sergeant James, maybe? Not on your life, Evie!’

‘So you’ll wait to talk to him when next you are on leave? Is that wise?’

‘Suppose not, especially since everybody expects we’re going to be married when we can manage to get leave together. My mother – Jeffrey’s mother -the entire village thinks it. Be a bit late for talking, won’t it?

‘And Evie, since you are acting in loco parentis, sort of, I think I’d better get the whole lot off my chest! I didn’t have to volunteer. I needn’t have joined up till I registered. And my age group hasn’t come up, yet. I really think,’ she rushed on, eyes on her hands, ‘that I joined up on purpose.’

‘To get away from Jeffrey, you mean, or to get out of getting married,’ Evie demanded, wide-eyed. ‘Do you realise how very serious marriage is – and how very wonderful it can be?’

‘I’d like to think we could be like you and Bob, but we’re not. Do you know that when you talk about him your eyes go all far away, and tender? And do you realise that you touch your wedding ring, too?’ Carrie whispered. ‘And hadn’t you thought that I wear my engagement ring round my neck because I say I don’t want to get it greased up?

‘And I didn’t join up to get away from Jeffrey, or get out of getting married. It was really, I suppose, to get away from the pressure. Everybody seemed to assume that that’s how it would be. I wanted time to myself, to think it out.’

The tears came then, hot and salty, and she covered her face with her hands and wept. And Evie sat on the bed beside her, and held her close, and said, ‘Sssssh. Seems to me you’ve been bottling this up for far too long, Carrie Tiptree, and when you are ready, you and I are going to have a good talk about things, before young Nan gets back. And talking about our Nan,’ she smiled, offering a clean handkerchief, ‘I wonder if her young man made it or if she’s on her way back, now – stood up and fed up!’

Private Nan Morrissey turned the bend in the road and saw the Black Bull ahead. No one was waiting there. She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes early, so where should she wait? Inside the pub, or outside? She remembered Grandad and decided to wait in the car park to the left where she wouldn’t be so conspicuous – especially if Chas didn’t turn up.

She heard the banging of a car door, and footsteps and then, ‘Nan!’

‘Hi!’ she called, hurrying to meet him.

‘I was sure you wouldn’t turn up.’ He took her hands in his, kissing her cheek.

‘And I was sure you’d be flying. I decided to give it till half-past, then shove off back. But you’re here. I wanted you to be.’

‘You did, Nan? Truly?’

‘Honest to God. Now – are we goin’ inside for a drink, or shall we have a stroll and a chat, before it gets dark?’

‘Whatever you want. We could, of course, sit in the car…?’

‘The car? You got a motor, Chas?’

‘I sort of share one. She’s a little darling. Come and meet her?’ He led her to a small car, a baby Austin, with one door tied up with wire and a mudguard missing. ‘We call her Boadicea.’

‘You call her what!’

Nan knew about Queen Boadicea. Indeed, she’d had nothing but admiration for the tribal queen who rebelled against the Romans who shouldn’t have been in England the first place!

‘But Chas – that motor isn’t one bit like a war chariot! Not the one Boadicea drove. Pulled by horses hers was and it had steel blades sticking out of the wheels so anybody that got a bit close got their legs cut off at the knees! That little thing shouldn’t be called Boadicea!’

‘What, then?’ He grinned.

‘We-e-ll – something like Violet or Primrose. Something delicate, sort of – and helpless!’

‘Sorry, Nan. Boadicea she is.’ He patted the bonnet with a gentle hand. ‘It was my turn to have her, tonight. She belonged to an air-gunner who didn’t make it back, so we kind of took her over.’

‘But where do you get petrol from?’ Petrol was severely rationed.

‘We sort of come by it. You can usually get hold of the odd gallon if you know where to look. And Boadicea goes a long way on a gallon.’

‘Y-yes. Well, I suppose we’d better go inside. I fancy a glass of shandy. How about you, Chas?’

‘Anything you say. I reckon we’ve got a lot of talking to do. And I’ll run you back in her.’

‘Do you know where my billet is – in the dark, I mean, and without lights? And can you find your way back to the aerodrome, from Heronflete?’

‘Darling girl, I can navigate my way to Berlin and back in the blackout – and without lights, too. Boadicea might have seen better days, but I trust her implicitly.’

‘Then I’ll be glad of a lift, only I haven’t got a late pass. I’ll have to be in by half-past ten or I’ll be in trouble.’

‘Don’t worry. We’ll have you home in good time.’ He took her hand, pulling it through his arm. ‘Like I said, you & I have a lot of catching up to do.’

And Nan let slip a little sigh, and thought how nice it was to be walking arm in arm with a young man who called her darling girl. And, of far more importance, a young man who hadn’t stammered once since they met. Now that really was something!

‘Feeling better now?’ Evie asked softly.

‘Yes. And sorry I made such a show of myself. I can usually cope with things. I’ve had to, y’see, me being what you might call a fatherless only child. And you must think I’m dreadful, leaving my mother on her own like I did. But it seemed to be the only way out. And I’m not making a fuss, truly I’m not.’

‘You’ve every right to make a fuss. Getting married is for life, Carrie, and best you sort yourself out now than be sorry, afterwards. And can I just say, that in my opinion, Jeffrey should have been a bit more – well – careful, when it was your first time. Bob was lovely – so gentle – but it seems to me that Jeffrey just rushed in without any talking – y’know, love words – or coaxing and kissing. And touching, too. Touching is very important; makes you want to as much as he does. But then, it might have been his first time, too – had you thought about that?’

‘No I hadn’t. I suppose it could have been like that for him, too. But why didn’t he tell me, instead of just demanding and snatching, Evie? I think I’d have felt a bit better about it if he’d been straight with me.’

‘Yes – we-e-ll – you’re both going to have to be honest with each other, and both of you must try not to be accusing, or bitter. Just try to talk -or write – as friends; loving friends.’

‘I’m not writing to him, Evie. I know it would be far the best way because I could set out my feelings more carefully and without interruption, too. But the thought of my letter being censored – oh, no. And it would be the same for Jeffrey, as well.’

‘Then what you’re going to have to do is write it all in a letter, keeping nothing back, and then stick a stamp on it and post it in a pillarbox like civilians do. We’re going to Lincoln on Saturday – surely you can manage to post one without been seen? It’s the best way out, in my opinion.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that, Evie. After all, even if I were caught, it wouldn’t be Heronflete I’d be writing about, would it? It would just be -’ She hesitated, sighing deeply. ‘Well, it would just be about my love life, wouldn’t it. Or the lack of it.’

‘You’ll give it a go, then? All it needs is an unbiased, uncritical letter telling Jeffrey how you felt about what happened that night, and how willing you are to work things out between you so that, when you do get married, everything will be much less embarrassing. You do want your wedding night to be something to remember always, don’t you Carrie?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Just to think of a loving and gentle husband, caring about how she felt and wanting to make things wonderful for them both, made her feel more understanding towards the Jeffrey who had been so uncaring and brash that it had made her almost dislike him. ‘Thanks a lot, Mrs Turner. And I wish I’d talked to you like this ages ago.’

‘Ages ago, Carrie, we didn’t know each other well enough. And bless you for calling me Mrs Turner. I was Mrs Turner for a whole week, after which I became Turner, or lance-corporal again. And heavens! What is that awful din outside!’

‘Sounds like a threshing machine in pain!’

Carrie put out the light as Evie made for the front door, calling ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

‘It’s me – Morrissey. Who did you think it was?’ Nan giggled. ‘And it was only Chas turning Boadicea round. She’s a bit naughty in reverse gear, he said.’

‘Boadicea? Have you been drinking Morrissey?’

‘No, Evie. We’ve been talking, mostly. And listen – there she goes, up the hill by the wood.’

They heard the sound of an engine protesting at so steep a hill, then the grating of gears and the parping of a horn.

‘That’s Chas letting me know he’s got her under control again.’

‘We’d better get inside. It’s turned half-past ten and I wouldn’t put it past the sergeant to do a sneaky check on us tonight – especially after all the commotion. And got who or what under control?’

‘Boadicea. She’s the little Austin they have as a runabout at Chas’s place. She’s very old and lots of bits have dropped off but they’re all very fond of her, so don’t mock her. And if I called your pick-up a rattletrap, Carrie, then I take it all back. You don’t know what rattletrap means, till you’ve been driven in Boadicea.’

‘So are you going to tell us about it,’ Evie prompted, a little alarmed at the flush in Nan’s cheeks and the shine in her eyes. ‘You had a good time?’

‘Luvely. And fingers crossed that we’ll both be able to make it on Tuesday. Chas says he’ll pick me up at Priest’s, so’s I don’t have to hoof all the way to the Black Bull, and would you mind if I don’t tell you, about it just now? So much happened, see, that it would take half the night.’

‘But everything was all right?’ Evie persisted. ‘He didn’t – er -’

‘Try anything on? Course he didn’t. But I hope it’s allowed for him to kiss me goodnight?’

‘Of course it is – and I’m not quizzing you, Nan. I haven’t got the right. I’d like to know, all the same, that Chas acted – well – like -’

‘Like a gentleman,’ Carrie supplied gravely.

‘Of course he did. He is a gentleman. And I’ll just do a quick nip down the garden.’

‘You’ll be all right, Nan?’

‘Course I will!’

The kitchen door slammed and Carrie said, ‘Well, if falling in love makes you that brave, then I’m all for it. And mark my words, Nan’s in love.’

‘Then I hope she doesn’t get hurt – after all, Chas does take more risks than most – flying, I mean.’

‘She won’t get hurt, Evie. She’ll be all right. Nan’s sort usually have a good guardian angel.’

‘Then I hope Chas has one, too.’

Evie really meant it, because Nan was so very young and this was her first falling in love. And probably Chas’s, too. Not twenty-one yet, but old enough to fly over Germany.

Evie hoped that Charles Lawson had a very vigilant guardian angel.

Seven

Carrie waited outside Priest’s Lodge. Three o’clock, Sergeant James had said, after which she would drive to Southgate, collect Evie and Nan, then set out for Lincoln. She drummed her fingers on the wheel, going over her instructions in her mind.

‘You can park behind Lincoln Barracks, no problem,’ Freddy had told her. ‘Best place to leave the truck, then nobody can get at your petrol. And Norm can take the big car to pick up the late shift. What’ll you be doing with yourself this afternoon, Carrie?’

‘Just having a look at the shops and maybe I’ll get something to eat if I can find a café.’

Carrie had felt uneasy. Not about driving through Lincoln for the first time, nor finding somewhere to park, but about the letter she was going to post sneakily in the first pillarbox she came across.

That letter to Jeffrey had not been easy to write. She had torn up several attempts before deciding that pussyfooting would get her nowhere. Straight and to the point it would have to be – and as reasonable as she could make it without seeming to criticise.

Dearest Jeffrey,

This letter will be very hard to write, but write it I must because something has been upsetting me for a long time – since the night mother was out playing whist, in fact – and we did something we should not have done. I was not proud of myself for giving in because I would rather have waited until our wedding night.

What we did made me feel so guilty, Jeffrey, that I did not enjoy it, and I know I should have, so can we talk about it, and will you at least try to understand how I feel, and what a terrible scandal there would have been in the village, if something had gone dreadfully wrong?

I cannot think about our wedding, you see, without remembering that night and how it upset me. And yes, I know I should have said something at the time, but I was too embarrassed and just wanted to forget it.

I do not know what I am trying to say, exactly, except that I want you to put my mind at rest and tell me it will be absolutely wonderful when next it happens – which will be on our honeymoon, I hope.

This letter is not meant to criticise you. I just think that we were both a bit hasty and spoiled something that should really be very precious.

I think I have put this badly, and I am sorry, but when next we meet I hope we will be able to talk to each other freely and frankly and put things to rights.

I am posting this letter sneakily, so you need not worry that someone had read it, and I hope you might be able to find a way to do the same when you reply to it. After all, things concerning you and me should be read by you and I only.

Write back very soon, and tell me you understand, darling. And tell me I am being an idiot, and that of course our honeymoon will be something I will never want to forget.

With love.

A disjointed, rambling letter with words tumbling out higgledy-piggledy; a letter she wished she need never have written, but one which, now it was in her pocket, she was glad that she had.

‘Wakey wakey, Tiptree!’ Sergeant James placed her respirator at her feet, then banged shut the door of the truck. ‘You were miles away!’

‘Sorry, Sergeant. Just thinking that once we get there I’ll be all right. Corporal Finnigan told me where to park. It’s just a bit awkward, with no road signs.’

‘Agreed, but necessary. Can’t have the enemy knowing where he is if he decides to parachute in!’

‘But I thought there wasn’t going to be an invasion, Sergeant. Not now that Hitler’s invaded Russia…’

‘The rate that man’s going at, he’ll be in Moscow by Christmas. Mind, it’ll be snowing there soon, so heaven only knows what’ll happen when everything is frozen over. But chop-chop, girl, and pick up the other two!’

‘Yes, Sergeant.’ Carrie could see Southgate at the bottom of the hill, and Evie and Nan waiting at the gate.

‘And what will you two be doing this afternoon,’ the sergeant asked when they had climbed into the back of the truck.

‘Me, Sergeant? I’ve got a date,’ Nan offered cheerily. ‘Well, I think I have. Course, he might be off bombin’ and that’ll be the end of it. Fingers crossed, eh?’

‘An airman, Morrissey? He wouldn’t by any chance own a very noisy car that awoke me at half-past ten the other night?’

‘Ar, sorry, Sergeant. That would be Boadicea. She’s a car he shares with some of the other lads at the aerodrome.’

‘Ha!’ Monica James was at a loss for words because, in her opinion, someone as young as Morrissey should be told the facts of life before she went on dates and allowed herself to be driven home in the dark in a car that wheezed and coughed – and backfired – fit to wake the dead!

But where did your duty as a sergeant end and where did interference take over? And surely Morrissey would have had the usual lectures in barracks during her training? Personal Hygiene, didn’t it come under? Keeping your nose clean and not landing yourself in trouble, it amounted to.

‘We’ll be dancing,’ Nan supplied when the silence had become noticeable. ‘He can’t dance, so I’m learning him.’

‘Then mind your young man gets you back to the truck for ten sharp.’

‘Yes, Sergeant.’ There didn’t seem much else to say, especially since Chas mightn’t even be there.

‘What will you do this afternoon?’ Evie asked the sergeant.

‘Got an appointment at the hairdressers for a trim and a shampoo and set, Turner. How about you?’

‘Carrie – er – Tiptree and I will tag along together – maybe look out for some under-the-counter-make-up.’

For the rest of the journey there was silence; Carrie concentrating on her driving, Sergeant James thinking how embarrassing it was having to mix with recruits so raw they hadn’t had their first leave, yet. Except Turner, that was.

She settled down to think about leave and leave-rosters, whilst Nan brooded that it wasn’t half awful having to share your transport with a sergeant on your afternoon off.

But Evie gentled her wedding ring and thought how marvellous it would be if she turned a corner and saw Bob striding towards her.

‘I can see the Cathedral,’ Carrie called. ‘Nearly there.’

She found the barracks with no trouble at all, reversed neatly into a parking space, then locked the truck.

‘Ten o’clock!’ reminded Sergeant James, then strode off in the direction of the High Street and a hairdresser called Maisie.

‘Where are you meeting Chas?’ Evie asked.

‘Outside the Cathedral. I told him I’m not very good at findin’ places, so he said I couldn’t miss something so big and I was to meet him there. Fingers crossed, eh?’ she grinned. ‘See you’se both. Have fun…’

‘Fun!’ Carrie grunted. ‘All I can think of is this letter. Keep your eyes open for a pillarbox, Evie.’

‘You managed it, then? Difficult, was it?’

‘After four false starts, but I got it finished in the end. It’s a bit of a jumble, but he’ll get the message. And I was very reasonable; said I knew things would be fine when we can get together and put things to rights – or words to that effect.’

‘So you’ll be threshing things out on your next leave – not arranging a wedding?’

‘If Jeffrey accepts the way I feel about – you know – things, there’s nothing to stop us getting a special licence – takes about three days, I believe. Mind, it would be a quiet wedding and a short honeymoon, so if mother is planning a big do, then we’ll have to put it off, to give her time. You were married in white, weren’t you?’ There was a wedding photograph on Evie’s locker. ‘Don’t think I’ll be able to run to anything elaborate, especially since I’d have to give coupons for a dress I’d only wear once.’

‘You’ve got clothing coupons?’ Evie frowned. ‘Didn’t you give them in when you joined up?’

‘I gave in my food ration book, my identity card and my clothing coupons book. But I only left two coupons in it – cut out the rest and they’re hidden at home. And I still think being married in our uniforms would be just fine. And I’m lucky. I won’t have to have a utility nine-carat ring. Mother said I could have my grandmother’s wedding ring. It’s quite thick and a bit old-fashioned, but it’s the real thing – and hey up, Evie. You take it!’

An officer was approaching them, head on, and would require to be saluted, because there were no convenient shop windows they could turn to look into, no way of getting out of it.

Evie brought her hand up in the smartest salute; Carrie gave an eyes right then whispered, ‘Hell!’ I hate saluting!’

‘You’ll get used to it, old love. King’s Regulations and all that. Means nothing, really. You’re only saluting the rank and not the man. And this place is crawling with officers – let’s get out of here, sharpish.’

They made for the street outside and a pillarbox and a café in that order, finding both within yards of each other.

‘Good! Just slip it in,’ Evie whispered, ‘as if you’ve got every right to. Try not to look guilty!’

Carrie heard the plop as it fell, then relaxed visibly. It was on its way now; no going back. And Jeffrey would understand – of course he would!

‘Right! Tea and with a bit of luck, a cake, or something,’ Evie grinned. ‘You look as if you could do with a cuppa, Tiptree.’

‘I could. And thanks a lot,’ Carrie sighed as she opened the café door. ‘For helping me sort things out. I feel a whole lot better about everything, now.’

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