Читать книгу GI Brides: The wartime girls who crossed the Atlantic for love - Duncan Barrett - Страница 10

Having waited outside her billet week after week, Rae’s GI admirer had finally worn down her resistance and got the date he wanted. After this small encouragement Raymond’s unannounced arrivals continued with the same frequency, and she got into the habit of letting him accompany her to the movies. It wasn’t much more than that – a habit – and she always made sure to walk off briskly at the end of the night before he had a chance to linger on the doorstep.

But one night, Raymond confronted her. ‘Rae, do you know how many times we’ve been out now?’

‘I haven’t been keeping count,’ she retorted.

‘Well, it’s been five dates, and you’ve never given me a goodnight kiss!’

Rae couldn’t help laughing at his hang-dog expression. ‘Oh, go on then,’ she said. An eighteen-year-old tomboy, she had never been kissed before. Why not get it over and done with?

At six foot two, Raymond had to lean over quite some way, but he took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. Rae found it a strange and not particularly pleasant experience.

However, after that there was no point pretending they weren’t a couple. ‘Why don’t you invite him round for Sunday lunch?’ suggested her housemate, Irene, who had also started dating a GI. Having an American at the table always guaranteed a better meal, since their food was shipped in from the States.

Raymond was a cook at a nearby US general hospital, and before the meal he made sure to sneak out some tins of turkey meat. The ATS girls were ecstatic when he turned up with this bounty, and devoured their turkey on toast. He also brought them glossy American magazines, which they kept under their mattresses.

Raymond was soon being invited to join them on nights out, and although he wasn’t a dancer he was happy to stand at the bar and watch Rae dance. Her friends joked that he didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off her, and she could see they had quickly taken to his easy-going personality. Among his own friends in the US Army, Raymond was nicknamed ‘Hap’, because he seemed so happy all the time. The two of them quickly acquired a new moniker: Big Ray and Little Rae.

Rae liked it that Raymond was tall and manly – she would never have been able to date a puny guy – and the fact that he was ten years older than herself, and in the Army like her own poor dad had been, made him feel a little like a father figure. She also found his persistence reassuring. ‘I love you, Rae,’ he told her over and over again, and although she never said it back, each time she felt a little fonder of him.

Raymond always made sure to walk Rae home at the end of an evening, stopping along the way for fish and chips – a delicacy unheard of in America – and as they strolled back to her billet he would tell her all about his life in Pennsylvania. He came from a small community called Hackett, not far from Pittsburgh, and like the rest of his family he had worked in the local coal mine since he left school. To Rae, who had grown up in London, coal-mining was an alien world, but she was pleased that he was from an ordinary, hard-working family like her own. She remembered the bragging Yank who had shown her a picture of a hotel in Florida and claimed it was his house, and appreciated Raymond’s honesty about his humble background.

But while Raymond was winning over Rae and her friends, there was another group of people who she knew would be less easy to convince: her family. Given her brothers’ dislike of the GIs, she had so far kept the relationship a secret.

She knew that her mother had recently put paid to her sister Mary’s relationship with her boyfriend Bob. Having got a ‘funny feeling’ that he was married, Mrs Burton had taken her tallest son round to confront him. When Bob admitted that her suspicions were correct, she had told him, ‘You stay away from my daughter. Here’s my son, and I’ve got two more just like him, so don’t you even try to come near us!’

As the weeks and months went by, Big Ray and Little Rae grew closer and closer, but she continued to put off mentioning him whenever she wrote to her mother. In any case, Mrs Burton had more pressing worries. After her ‘funny feeling’ about Mary’s boyfriend had turned out to be correct, she had begun to trust her intuition more and more. Now it was telling her that her own husband wasn’t being faithful.

During his long shifts with the military police, guarding ‘vulnerable points’, Rae’s stepfather had been eyeing up his own target, a much younger woman in the ATS. When the girl had taken him home to meet her parents, they had been surprised to meet a man their own age. But they liked Mr Burton and willingly gave him their daughter’s hand in marriage, little knowing that he already had a wife and family.

‘He’s being tried for bigamy,’ Rae’s distraught mother wrote to her, ‘at the Old Bailey.’

Rae was furious. She got leave to return to London for the court case, and made sure she was there to hold her mother’s hand as they watched the man who had been a father to her for more than a decade stand in the dock. Mr Burton argued that he had only married his mistress because she had fallen pregnant, and with a good character witness from his officer he avoided jail. But Rae’s mother refused to give him the satisfaction of a divorce, and he and his ATS girl lived out the rest of their days unmarried.

Back in Mansfield, Big Ray and Little Rae’s weekly dates continued, always followed by a visit to the fish-and-chip shop. One day, they were sitting in the pub when Raymond drew something out of his pocket.

‘Would you accept this?’ he asked her.

He was holding a large gold ring with five stones in it. Five stones meant five words: Will You Be My Wife?

Rae was completely taken aback. Marriage had never crossed her mind in their months of dating, and she’d had no thoughts of the future whatsoever. What was the point, when no one knew how long the war would rumble on – or what the eventual outcome would be? She and Raymond could both be dead by tomorrow.

But she liked him, and all she knew at this point in time was that she wanted to carry on being with him.

‘Yes,’ she said, a little surprised at herself.

Now that they were engaged, there was no way Rae could continue to keep the relationship a secret, so finally she wrote to her mother. An anxious reply came back: ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

There was only one way to convince Mrs Burton. The following month, they took a train to London so that Raymond could meet her, as well as Rae’s sister Mary. Rae just hoped her mother’s intuition didn’t give her another ‘funny feeling’.

Raymond came armed with several tins of turkey and some much-coveted butter. To Rae’s relief her mother seemed to like him, although she did repeat the question, ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ as soon as he left the room.

But throughout dinner Rae noticed that her sister seemed a little quiet, and as she helped her take the plates out to the kitchen she asked her what was on her mind.

‘I’m just not sure about him, Rae,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why.’

Rae soon discovered that family introductions were only the first hurdle. The US Army was not keen on its soldiers marrying while on duty abroad, and the process of obtaining permission to wed was an elaborate one. A commanding officer had to approve the application, and write a letter to the civil or church authority who would conduct the marriage, having interviewed the GI in question. The potential bride was also subject to questioning, usually by an army chaplain, and was required to provide character references. The Army did its best to dissuade prospective brides, who were often accused of using marriage as a ticket to a more prosperous country. Meanwhile, checks were made into any dependants of the GI in the US, to ensure that the husband could afford to keep his new wife. Unsurprisingly, the process often took many months, but any GI caught violating the Army’s strict procedures was subject to a court martial.

Rae set about accumulating the necessary paperwork for her marriage to go through smoothly. Her captain provided a character reference, and even agreed to walk her down the aisle. Rae’s housemate Eileen, the colonel’s chauffeur, and Nancy, a girl from the storage depot, were to be bridesmaids.

But despite all their work, Rae and Raymond were told it would take at least six months for the Army to process their application. In a war, that seemed as bad as six years. Then there was worse news: Rae received notice that she was being transferred to a workshop in Buntingford, more than a hundred miles away.

That was the last straw. Raymond went straight to his commanding officer. ‘I need special permission to get married quickly,’ he said.

The CO looked at him knowingly. ‘Is your girlfriend pregnant?’ he asked. That was normally the reason for such requests.

‘No!’ laughed Raymond. ‘She’s just being transferred.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said the other man.

The wedding was brought forward by three months, giving them just enough time to wed before Rae had to leave, although that meant it would have to take place in chilly January.

Rae intended to be married in her army uniform, just like Raymond. But he thought there might be something he could do to prevent her wearing the regulation thick cotton ATS stockings on their wedding day. ‘I bought you this,’ he said the next time he visited her, handing her a little box. Inside was a pair of silk stockings, with seams up the back.

‘I can’t wear these – they’re not regulation!’ she said.

‘Rae, just take them,’ Raymond pleaded.

The fourth of January 1944 was a cold day, but there was a clear sky and no sign of rain. Entering the church, Rae could see all her ATS friends, as well as some of her male colleagues from the workshop and army friends of Raymond’s. His best man was another cook called Chet, who lived in a town near Raymond’s home in Pennsylvania. As Rae reached the altar, Raymond smiled with relief to see that she had forsaken her thick regulation stockings and was wearing the silk ones he had given her.

After the ceremony they went straight in to sign the register. Then the little group went to the pub for a few celebratory drinks, before heading to the couple’s favourite restaurant for the wedding feast: the local fish-and-chip shop.

The next morning, they took a train down to London for their honeymoon. Rae enjoyed giving her new husband a guided tour of her city – she showed him the Houses of Parliament, pointed out the Tower of London and took him to Hyde Park to hear the ranting men on their upturned fruit boxes at Speakers’ Corner. On their way out of the park Rae paid a visit to the underground public toilet, while Raymond waited for her up on the pavement.

When she came back up the stairs, he was standing where she’d left him, but next to him was a busty redhead, one of the ‘Piccadilly Commandos’ who plied their trade in the West End. Since the arrival of the Americans these prostitutes now swarmed the area around Piccadilly, Leicester Square and Park Lane, making the most of the rich pickings. At night they lined the streets around the American Red Cross club on Rainbow Corner, shining torches on their ankles to attract the soldiers, and carried out their business in shop doorways.

The girl was clearly propositioning Raymond, but as soon as she saw Rae she quickly walked off.

‘You better not leave me alone round here!’ Raymond joked, putting his arm around his wife.

Back in Mansfield, it was only a matter of days before the new Mr and Mrs Raymond Wessel were parted, as Rae left for her 100-mile journey to Buntingford. She was leaving behind not only her husband, but the girls who had become like family to her: Eileen, Nancy, Irene and Helen. Rae knew she would miss her life in Mansfield terribly.

After the relative luxury of her previous billet, Buntingford brought a return to life in a Nissen hut, and the camp was muddy and cold. Rae had been sent to a Central Command workshop, much bigger than the one she was used to, and once again she was the only female welder. But this time there was no messing around with odd jobs – the Allies were gearing up for D-Day and her role was to seal over any holes in the hundreds of tanks that came in. Since many were being modified as amphibious vehicles, to be launched into the sea a couple of miles off shore, it was essential that they should be buoyant.

Rae threw herself into the work, glad to be finally making a significant contribution to the war effort, but the pressure to get the tanks out quickly was intense. One day, when she had finished working on a tank, she jumped down from the top to save time, instead of waiting for a ladder, and immediately felt a pain in her abdomen. Thinking that she must have pulled a muscle, she got on with her work, trying her best to ignore her discomfort.

But by the end of the day the pain still hadn’t gone, and after a night on her hard wooden bed it was even worse. The accident also seemed to have brought on her period, and the cramps added to her misery.

Rae struggled on with her work, but after two more days she was in agony. She woke up with a fever, and the pain in her abdomen was so severe that she couldn’t move.

A medical officer came to her bedside and examined her. ‘Rae,’ he said quietly, ‘did you know you were pregnant?’

Rae shook her head. She was too dumbfounded to speak.

‘I’m afraid you’re having a miscarriage,’ the man informed her.

Rae was shocked. She and Raymond had spent so little intimate time together that the possibility of her being pregnant hadn’t even crossed her mind. She had been clambering over tanks for the last six weeks. If only she had known.

Minutes later, Rae was in an ambulance speeding to Bishop’s Stortford Hospital. As she lay in the back of the vehicle, every bump and pothole it went over brought her fresh agony.

By the time she got to hospital, it was clear Rae had haemorrhaged badly. For three days she was so delirious that she couldn’t speak. But in her more lucid moments, lying in her hospital bed 100 miles away from her new husband, she felt utterly miserable.

When she was finally discharged, Rae was given two weeks’ sick leave, but to her dismay she was not allowed to go up to Mansfield to see Raymond because of the distance. The only place she could go was back to her mother’s in London.

It was a relief to be with family again, but the person she really longed to see was Raymond. Rae had kept him at arm’s length when they first met, but now she found she desperately wanted him around. Fortunately, since they were married, he was able to put in a request for her to be stationed closer to him.

Rae was hoping she might be sent back to Mansfield where her friends were, and looked forward to returning to her old, happy life. But it was not to be. The best the Army could do was a post twenty miles south in Chilwell, a suburb of Nottingham. Reluctantly, Rae packed her bags and headed to the depot, which was the largest in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

At least Raymond could now visit her every weekend. The miscarriage had made her feel more connected to him, and it was good to have his big strong arms around her again.

But the reunion was short-lived, and soon Raymond was sent away to Wales for training, more than 200 miles away. Rae knew all too well what he was training for. D-Day was looming and his hospital unit would be required to deal with the inevitable casualties on the far shore. Raymond was going into the battlefield, and Rae had no way of knowing if he would ever come back.