Читать книгу Women on the Home Front: Family Saga 4-Book Collection - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 29

Chapter Eighteen

‘Come on, Agnes, we’d better hurry otherwise we’ll be late,’ Tilly exhorted.

It was one of their St John Ambulance evenings and, having spent an hour in the garden removing weeds from Sally’s vegetable plot, they were now later than they had planned setting out for the brigade’s meeting in the church hall.

With the return of the BEF from France, the WVS, the St John Ambulance and various other voluntary organisations were all working at full stretch, with volunteers being asked to put in as many hours as they could. This meant that Tilly and Agnes were returning home from work to quickly eat the meal Olive had cooked for them, before all three changed into their uniforms and dashed out of the house to join their respective voluntary groups. Olive was in particular demand because of her driving abilities and had even been called upon to drive a temporary ambulance to and from St Pancras to St Thomas’s Hospital one evening when the normal driver hadn’t turned up. Tilly and Agnes had gone from practising first aid to actually doing it, and as Tilly said to Agnes as they hurried to meet up with other members of their group, after the first few real wounds they’d had to check and dress, they’d been so busy that she’d forgotten to be nervous.

Christopher had reached the church hall before them and was checking through their main first-aid box.

Tilly nudged Agnes, telling her, ‘Let’s go and give Christopher a hand rolling those bandages.’ He was standing with his back to them, dressed in stone-coloured cavalry twill trousers and a checked shirt with a Fair Isle-patterned sleeveless pullover on top. Tilly had noticed how some of the other members of their group avoided Christopher, turning their backs and refusing to speak to him, and their attitude made her feel sorry for him and protective towards him. He might be a conscientious objector and not prepared to fight but at least he was doing something towards the war effort.

‘I didn’t have time to change into my St John Ambulance uniform because Mum needed me to give her a hand setting up a bed downstairs for Dad. He’s been bad with his chest these last few days and the doctor said that he didn’t want him going up and down the stairs.’

Tilly knew from her mother that Christopher’s father’s health was declining, and Nancy next door had said that she reckoned he wouldn’t see Christmas. Tilly hoped that Nancy was wrong. She knew how close Christopher was to his father, and she knew too how she would be feeling if it was her mother that was so seriously ill.

Half an hour later, when everyone had arrived and the tea urn had been filled, Lucy Higgins, whose father was an ARP warden came round with a tray of tea for them all, but when Christopher reached for a cup she deliberately jerked the tray away from him, so that he couldn’t get a drink.

‘Here, Christopher, this is for you,’ Tilly announced, firmly handing him her own cup, before heading for the small kitchen to get a clean cup for her own drink.

Lucy Higgins appeared in the doorway, blocking her exit as she told her with contempt, ‘You want to watch it, you do, making friends with that coward. Otherwise people will begin to think that you’re just as bad as he is.’

‘Christopher is not a coward.’ Tilly immediately countered.

‘Course he is. He’s a conchie, and he’s refusing to fight.’

‘He objects to the war on moral grounds, not fears for his own safety.’

‘Oh ho, moral grounds, is it?’ Lucy mocked. ‘He’s a coward and a traitor, and he ought to be strung up. That’s what my dad says.’

Lucy’s unkindness and bullying manner towards Christopher left a bad taste in Tilly’s mouth.

She was still feeling sorry for him when the three of them walked home together later in the evening, both her and Agnes having to walk a bit faster than normal in order to keep up with him, his speed no doubt because he was anxious to get back to his father, Tilly guessed.

She, on the other hand, would have liked to linger. The long daylight hours and June sunshine were a relief after the winter nights of blackouts and absolute darkness.

It had been a severe winter, with the loss of many, many sailors and a great deal of shipping, due to the successful attacks of Hitler’s submarines on the navy-escorted convoys crossing the Atlantic and bringing much-needed supplies to the country. The convoys and the goods they carried were a vital lifeline for the country.

Despite the warmth of the June evening Tilly gave a small shiver. Everyone had been so confident when the war had first started, that they would have Hitler beaten within months, his army retreating back to Germany with its tail between its legs. The reality, though, was that it was the BEF that had been driven into retreat and now the whole counry was aware of how vulnerable Britain was. The fear of invasion was gripping everyone. Tilly knew that her mother was worrying about it, even though she wasn’t saying so, and Tilly knew too that her worry was for her.

She felt afraid herself sometimes listening to people talking about the horror stories the refugees who had made it safely to London had to tell, especially those from Poland. Another shiver gripped Tilly. There were two Polish refugee families sharing a house in Article Row, two women with children, and an older woman.

According to Nancy, who made it her business to know everything that went on in Article Row, the two women were sisters, and the elderly woman was their mother. Their husbands had been killed fighting against Hitler, whilst the eldest son of one of the women, a boy of fourteen, had been shot through the head by a German soldier for trying to protect the cousin the soldier had then gone on to rape, and who had shot herself with the soldier’s gun rather than bear the shame of what had happened to her.

Tilly had guessed from the look exchanged between her mother and Sally when Nancy had told them all this story that it was both true and not an isolated occurrence.

She didn’t dare let herself think about what might happen here in London if the Germans did invade and ended up marching on the city like they were now marching on Paris.

Sally wasn’t the only one concerned about the important matter of ‘going steady’. It was an issue that had been on Ted’s mind since Christmas, and now, his feelings heated by the June sunshine and the sight of couples walking and sweet-talking together in London’s streets and parks, he ached to tell Agnes how he felt about her and to ask her to be his girl.

There were problems, though. Ted was the sole breadwinner in his family, his earnings desperately needed to supplement the small income his mother received as a cleaner. The need for her services, and thus her income, had decreased since the start of the war with many well-to-do families leaving London for the safety of the country for the sake of their children.

There was no way Ted could move out of the family home, a tiny rented flat provided by the Guinness Trust, and no way either that he could move Agnes into it as his wife, as he suspected it would be against the rules, and besides, his bedroom was no bigger than a cupboard and had room for only a single bed, whilst his mother shared the single bedroom with his two young sisters.

Agnes was a lovely girl and a very special person, who had blossomed from the shy shabby girl he had first met to a confident happy young woman. Even old Smithy was now putty in her hands, mellowed by her smile and her genuine kindness. Ted was happy that Agnes had found her feet – of course he was – but at the same time he was also worried that some other chap with better prospects and more to offer her might win her heart and steal her from him. For that reason he longed to be able to declare himself but how could he when all he could offer her was the prospect of a long engagement?

Rick downed his pint of beer. It had been a mistake coming here to the working men’s club where his father’s friends wanted to talk about the war and ask him questions. He still felt too raw for that. Dunkirk had left him feeling as though a layer of skin had been ripped from his body, leaving him sensitive to the lightest touch.

He had seen and experienced too much that his mind and body wanted to forget and couldn’t. Men – his comrades, his friends – left dead and dying during their retreat; good brave men, far braver and better than he. And then Dunkirk itself.

The dead and dying everywhere, like the tension that gripped them all as they stood in line waiting . . . waiting. He’d given up his chance of being the last onto one boat to allow an injured comrade to take his place. Rick reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. That act of generosity had saved his life, because the boat had been attacked by the Luftwaffe. He had seen it hit as he stood on the beach. He had heard the screams of the men dying in the hail of fire, or burned alive in the fuel it discharged as it caught fire. He should have been on that boat . . . His hands started to shake, making it impossible for him to light his cigarette.

He ordered another pint, drinking it quickly, trying to drown out his memories, but they refused to leave him in peace. The heat of the packed club brought him out in a sweat, the stale beer and cigarette smells filling his lungs and making him long for fresh air. Finishing his drink, he left the club, taking a deep breath of the mild late evening air as he headed homewards, his stomach heaving as he drew level with the chip shop and breathed in the smell of the cooked food.

Someone hailed him from inside the shop – Rita Sands, a local good-time girl. She had a reputation in the neighbourhood for being the girl that most of the local lads had had their first sexual experience with. Rick didn’t stop.

Making his way home through the warren of backstreets of the East End, he was just about to cut down a narrow alleyway that was a bit of a shortcut, when he heard someone running after him, and Rita’s voice calling, ‘Hey, Ricky, hang on a minute, will you?’

Grimly Rick turned round, demanding, ‘Leave me alone, will you, Rita? I’m not in the mood for company.’

Unabashed she told him, ‘Bet I could get you in the mood.’ She moved closer to him, putting her hand on his arm. Her hair smelled of grease and fish and chips. Rick wanted to recoil from her. Just as he had recoiled from the sight of his dead comrades? Bile filled his throat as he fought to stand where he was, just as he had done in France.

‘Oooh, them’s ever such strong muscles you’ve got there, Ricky,’ Rita cooed. ‘I’ll bet it isn’t only there that you’ve got them neither, is it? There’s something about a man in uniform that makes a girl go weak at the knees, if you know what I mean.’

Rick knew what Rita meant all right. It was still light enough for him to see the way her breasts strained against her too-tight top.

He started to turn away from her, repelled by her sexual obviousness, but instead of letting him go Rita moved closer, flinging her arm round his neck and kissing him wetly on his mouth, her free hand moving to his groin.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you know you want me really.’

Filled with revulsion, Rick shrugged her off, ignoring her outburst of insults and anger as he pushed past her, intent on putting as much distance between them as he could.

‘Coward,’ she called after him, jeeringly. ‘Running away from me just like you ran away from the Germans.’

Rick stopped dead in his tracks. A red mist of rage descended on him, a desire to turn round and shake Rita until she took back her insulting words, not for his sake but for the sake of the men who would never come home, men who knew more about bravery and courage than someone like Rita could ever grasp.

His anger left him as abruptly as it had seized him. All the anger in the world wouldn’t bring those men back, but he would damn well make sure that when he was eventually facing the Germans it would be those fallen men he would be fighting for.