Читать книгу The Battle Within - Philip Gibbs - Страница 6

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Young Mrs. Manning went into the factory yard and climbed up some wooden stairs to a workshop above. On the ground floor only men worked, using machines for cutting plastic sheets into strange shapes afterwards delivered upstairs for pressing and bending on wooden jigs. As she climbed the wooden steps to a platform outside her own workroom she could hear the whirr of the machines and other sounds. A man was whistling “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” Another, who she guessed to be a roguish-eyed young carpenter named Bert Hickling—he had the cheek to wink at her now and then—was singing “Roll Out the Barrel” in a florid voice. One of the workmen was coughing with an asthmatical wheeze.

Mrs. Manning stood for a moment on the wooden platform and looked down on to the yard and then over the old red roofs rose-coloured in the early morning sunshine. It was going to be a lovely day she knew and for a moment she regretted having to go indoors to her bench. Time was when she would have gone riding over Fallow Green or through the bracken on the hills over Ashleigh Heath. But she liked her job here as a factory girl. It was interesting and amusing, she found, and she was doing something to help on the war.

The foreman greeted her when she stepped into the big workshop where most of the women were already at their benches.

“Good morning, Mrs. Manning. Nice day.”

She answered his greeting with a friendly smile. Mr. Grindle was a good friend of hers. He had been very helpful and patient in teaching her a tricky little job in which she was now expert. He was one of those men she thought who are the backbone of England with all its tradition in their spirit; simple, hardworking, loyal and dead honest. Sometimes he came round to her bench for a bit of a chat, generally when the women knocked off for tea. He was a well-read man and seemed to know a lot of history. He had been in the last war and ever since had worked for peace. Now he had strong and stern views about the Germans who had spoilt life for the second time within twenty years.

“Good morning, Marjorie,” said a young woman in blue trousers and a white silk blouse, who was drilling innumerable little holes into a fibrous board. That was Betty Langdon, who had once served in a tea-shop in Farningham.

“ ’Morning, Marjorie,” said another girl, wearing corduroy trousers and a green shirt open at the neck. “Goin’ strong, dearie?”

That was Greta Jenkins, once a factory hand in Bermondsey living with her parents in a tenement house which had been blasted into ruins one moonlit night when the “black bats” of death came over London. Her father and mother had been killed, but Greta Jenkins had kept her Cockney spirit and wit, and was a tireless conversationalist over her bench.

All these young women and two or three elderly ones called Mrs. Manning “Marjorie”—as they called each other by their Christian name. There was no caste in this workshop, but a perfect equality of status though not always a perfect sense of comradeship. Little quarrels flared up.

Tempers were frayed now and then. There were occasional exchanges of hot words and dark looks. Little tiger cats showed their claws. A whispered word of scandal about one young woman passed down the benches as though by some code of vibration and caused ironical or angry comment. Those were rare, though recurring, episodes due to the craving of human nature for drama, passionate partisanship and free right of criticism. As a rule harmony prevailed, to say nothing of musical accompaniment to the noise of drills, presses, and incessant scratching of sharp tools.

That music seldom ceased. It came at full blast from a wireless instrument recording the programme of the B.B.C. from eight o’clock till half-past five.

It was on again this morning when Marjorie Manning stood over her own bench, which she shared with Greta Jenkins. They were the two experts who put the finishing touches to the fuselage of a fighter-plane. The wireless was blaring out the nervous rhythm of American dances, and Greta the Cockney was swaying her body and tapping heel and toe in time to this syncopated and discordant merriment.

Mr. Grindle, passing Marjorie’s bench, groaned slightly and made a plaintive protest with a humorous grimace.

“Do you really enjoy that horrible noise? Can’t we turn it down a bit?”

“Turn it down,” cried Greta Jenkins. “Why, I wouldn’t do a bloomin’ stroke of work if it wasn’t for the dear old B.B.C.”

“That’s right,” said another girl working near. “No music, no work.”

“Oh well, keep it on if you like it. It’s blue torture to me, but that doesn’t matter.”

“You belong to a different age,” said a saucy-eyed young woman with a red shirt tucked into her trousers. “The modern mind needs rhythm as much as food, and thank goodness it isn’t rationed.”

Mr. Grindle laughed at this reference to the age to which he belonged.

“The modern mind, as you call it, is a queer box of tricks. But I can’t quarrel with it. It’s doing pretty well in this war and this factory.” He passed on to the next bench where he was addressed by a dark-eyed girl in a flowered jacket over her slacks.

“Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Grindle, but may I get off tomorrow for a fortnight? My husband has embarkation leave again.”

“What, again?” exclaimed the foreman with astonishment. “Why, that’s the third time in six months.”

There was a little chorus of laughter from three or four of the other young women who were within earshot of this dialogue.

“That embarkation leave,” said Greta Jenkins, “gives me the hump. Why, some of these gals ’ave an ’oneymoon every two months! It ain’t fair on single women like me. It’s a blasted fraud and I’ve a good mind to write to Churchill about it.”

Young Mrs. Manning laughed.

“You would think differently about it if you were married, Greta. Why don’t you marry a nice-looking Canadian?”

Greta Jenkins gave a shrill laugh.

“Me? Marry a nice-looking Canadian? Why ’e’d ’ave to be blind drunk and get carried to the Registry Office. I was born with the wrong kind of fice. Gord ’ad a grudge against me.”

Marjorie Manning smiled over a little screw she was fitting into the frame.

“It’s a very attractive face, Greta. Your eyes are brimful of wit and humour.”

“Oh, you can’t kid me,” said Greta. “I’ve looked at myself in a mirror which wasn’t cracked. Besides, I ain’t the marryin’ kind, and I don’t walk out with Canadian soldiers for the sake of a few drinks. We was taught morals down in Bermondsey, not like some of the girls about ’ere.”

She happened to glance at a girl scratching lines on a piece of fibre before gluing two bits together.

“Not meaning me, I suppose?” enquired that young woman, stopping work with her sharp knife.

“Meaning those who would walk into any pub with any kind o’ feller who ’as a bit of brass,” said Greta calmly. “There’s a lot of it.”

The girl with the knife breathed hard and leaned forward.

“If you’re addressing your words to me, Greta Jenkins, I’ll slosh the life out of you when we knock off work. We’ve had too much of your lip lately. See? You think you’re damn funny sometimes, don’t you?”

“If you listen to what ain’t meant for your ears,” answered Greta, “you must put up with the consequences. As it ’appened I was speaking to my friend, Marjorie Manning. And I made no reference neither to the ‘Red Lion’.”

A sudden flame leapt into the cheeks of the young woman with the scratching tool.

“If you don’t take that back,” she said, “there’ll be a bit of murder before the day’s out. See?”

“Oh, put a sock in it,” said Greta. “We’re helpin’ to win the war, ain’t we, Betty Blinker? Here’s the foreman coming again.”

“All this noise doesn’t seem to spoil your conversational exercises,” he remarked ironically. “And so early in the morning, too.”

“That’s right,” answered Greta. “We can’t ’ear ourselves speak, but we keeps on speakin’.”

Marjorie Manning went on with her work. Once or twice she glanced at the girl called Betty Blinker and noticed that she had relapsed into a gloomy silence, darting occasional flame and fury at Greta Jenkins, who seemed unaware of them and was whistling in tune to the wireless. Other conversation died down as the women became absorbed in their work. They worked in a well-lighted room with big windows through which the sunshine glinted on to their tools and machines. There was a smell of sawdust and glue and fibre which Marjorie found rather pleasant. She had made friends with most of these young women, who were all very friendly. Nearly all of them had made war marriages. Nearly all the husbands were away with the Forces at home or abroad. Most of these girls lived with their parents and put away nearly all the money they earned—two pounds ten to three pounds five a week—in war saving certificates or Wings for Victory Bonds. She had spoken once to Greta Jenkins about this.

“These girls are putting by a lot of money. It will be a surprise to their husbands when they get to hear about it.”

“That’s all they will do,” answered Greta. “They’ll be mistook if they try to lay ’ands on it.”

There were tragedies among them. The prettiest girl in the room, Letty Birch—like Romney’s portrait of Lady Hamilton with the muff—was already a widow after being married for only a year. Her husband had been killed in the Eighth Army’s advance to Tunisia. Only a few weeks ago a girl had been called out of the workshop by Mr. Grindle, who had looked grave and sympathetic. He had had a telephone message from her father to say that her husband, who was a sergeant pilot, had failed to return to his base after a bombing raid over Essen. The girl took it bravely and refused to have a day’s leave. She came back into the room with a very white face and bent over her job again. When the news leaked out in the afternoon some of the girls came up to her full of sympathy, but with a kind of anger she pushed them away.

“What’s the use of crying?” she asked fiercely. “Don’t we expect our men to be killed? Didn’t we know that would happen when we married them? It’s war, isn’t it? Let’s get on with our jobs.”

Marjorie Manning thought that brave and fine of her. “These girls are wonderful,” she thought. “I was born with far greater advantages and with a family tradition behind me. All my people were soldiers or sailors, but they have more courage than I have. I wonder if I shall take it as well if one morning Mr. Grindle comes to this bench and says: ‘May I have a word with you outside?’ Of course I shall know instantly what he has to say. He will have had a telephone message from Clare telling him that Gerald has been killed while his tank was in action. How shall I take that if it comes? Gerald, my dear. The father of my two babes. My lover in peace time. My dearest dear for whom I pray every night, though he seems to fade away from me sometimes and to belong to a world that has passed from a dream which I once had. I’m getting over the torture of his absence. I no longer feel the same agony of loneliness. I kiss his letters, but they don’t seem to mean much after three years. These girls are happy without their husbands. They seem happy although they say they are fed up with the war. Marriage was only an episode like the Summer holidays. Their men will be strangers when they come back. It’s all very odd and tragic in a way.”

Marjorie Manning had these secret thoughts as she went on working all day long at her bench. Oddly assorted thoughts and pictures came into her mind. Her sister Clare, who looked after the children, talked of going back to mother, who wasn’t well. If that happened Marjorie would have to give up this factory and look after the babes herself. Clare thought she ought to anyhow. She didn’t approve of Marjorie doing this job when she could claim exemption. “I’m helping to win the war,” Marjorie told her; but she only laughed and said: “Sky bosh, darling! You do it because it amuses you more than taking care of your own children.”

The faces of her friends came into Marjorie’s mind. Irene Haddon with her humorous eyes. She was a great dear. Pearl and Peter. She hadn’t seen Peter for some time. On his last leave he had played bears with the children. That was very nice of a pilot officer in the R.A.F. She liked Peter. They had gone to the same nursery school when they were small children. She had once promised to marry Peter. “Will you marry me when I’m grown up?” he asked her one day. He must have been a boy of eight then. “Of course I will, Peter,” she had told him, taking it for granted. A childish memory of hers.

Why should it come back to her mind after so many years when she was Gerald’s wife?

“A penny for your thoughts, dearie,” said Greta Jenkins.

Marjorie looked up and smiled.

“Not worth a penny,” she answered.

The loud-speaker was still blaring—good music this time. Myra Hess was playing Mozart. The girls were paying no attention to it. She could hear voices chattering loudly above the whirr of machines and the ripple of music.

“I’ll have something to say to you after we knock off,” said Betty Blinker, glaring at Greta Jenkins.

So that pot was still simmering.

Mrs. Langdon came round to Marjorie’s bench later in the day. That was at tea-time, when they had a short respite, drinking tea at their benches. Some of the girls were smoking cigarettes tacitly permitted by their good-natured foreman. Mrs. Langdon was what the girls called “classy.” Some of them went as far as saying—“a real lady, you know. Not like one of us.” She was quite elderly. Marjorie put her down as something over fifty, though some of the girls thought she had turned sixty. They agreed that it was plucky of her to take on factory work at her time of life, especially as she was one of the nobs and used to drive about in a big car with her own chauffeur. She was the only one in the factory not called by her Christian name. That was because of her age and not for snob reasons.

“How are the babes?” she asked Marjorie. “Out of quarantine for chicken-pox?”

“Not yet,” said Marjorie. “Aren’t you working too hard? You look tired.”

Mrs. Langdon laughed at this suggestion.

“Oh no. I can stick it out. I’m pretty wiry, thank God, and I’m not going to quit until we’ve won this war.”

“How long will that be?” asked Marjorie, with a smile at her own question. It was the only one asked by the girls, who otherwise seemed curiously uninterested in the war, about which they seldom talked.

Mrs. Langdon lowered her voice.

“I met an old friend of mine on Sunday. He happens to be an Air Marshal. I must say he was very optimistic. As soon as we have cleared up Tunisia—another three weeks for that he says—we shall get ready for the big invasion. The Germans are ready to crack he says, he gives the war another nine months at most. So your Gerald will be home for Christmas.”

“I hope it’s true,” said Marjorie. “Other people say it’s going to last another six years. So one doesn’t know what to believe. One just goes on waiting and hoping.”

“Six years!” exclaimed Mrs. Langdon. “Fiddle-sticks, my dear! I have a friend in the Foreign Office—”

She had many highly-placed friends it seemed. Almost every day she had a little titbit of inside information which she imparted to Marjorie under a pledge of secrecy. Unfortunately it proved mostly to be incorrect, but nothing shook the faith and optimism of Mrs. Langdon. The victory in Tunisia had come to her as no surprise.

“As soon as we make our landings in France,” she said, “we shall be in Berlin as fast as our tanks can move. Europe will rise in flames behind the German retreat. My dear General de Gaulle will be in the forefront of liberation.”

She was a passionate partisan of General de Gaulle, for whom she had a devoted hero-worship.

“All these girls will have their men back soon,” she said. “Perhaps too soon for some of them who are getting a lot of fun out of life without them. By the way, that girl Patty—”

She liked her little bit of scandal.

Work again. Music. Bits of conversation. An outburst of singing. A little reprimand from the foreman to a girl who was fooling around. An argument about whether men liked war and didn’t mind being killed. The visit of an inspector, who tested measurements and seemed to find everything O.K.

“Gord, how my legs ache,” said a girl when five o’clock came round.

“Oh, you’ll soon get used to that,” said one of the other girls.

“I could have dropped when I first came here. Now I’m used to being on my pins all day. Funny how one gets used to almost everything—even the tube shelters where I slept for five months every night during the London Blitz. I quite missed ’em when I came down here. The company you know. All very cheery.”

It was the scene in one small factory. All over Britain it was more or less the same in thousands of factories bigger than this. The women of England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland were making the weapons and material of the great war machine which had been built up after Dunkirk when we had next to nothing. They had taken over men’s jobs, releasing them for all the Services. They had learnt to be skilled workers in dangerous jobs. In thousands of factories they were swinging and swaying to the rhythm of many orchestras in a world of women without men, and men without women. Some of them were tortured by this divorcement after a few weeks or months of marriage. To some of them the war seemed unending with their men away from them. Death was announced to young wives with young husbands in the Royal Navy or the R.A.F. or the Royal Tank Corps. Some were disloyal. Some slipped into pubs and ordered double whiskeys—which cost a lot of money out of weekly wages. Some were sluts and vixens and wantons. But the little factory in Farningham was a miniature of this vast picture of women workers in war-time—with very decent girls helpful and comradely, merry and bright, and “full of beans” as they said.

Human nature was not ironed out. They were not angels.

Greta Jenkins and Betty Blinker did not look like angels when Marjorie Manning went out into the yard a trifle later after her day’s work because she had lingered to have a little talk with Mr. Grindle.

The two girls were in the yard facing each other. Their voices were raised in anger.

“I told you I would slosh you,” cried Betty Blinker.

“Oh, go on!” cried Greta. “I don’t know what you’re talking abaht.”

“Well, take that then.”

Betty Blinker smacked Greta Jenkins across the face with the back of her hand.

“You dirty little—”

Greta closed her fist and shot it out, and hit Betty on the chin.

Marjorie Manning ran towards them, and seized Betty by the arm.

“Betty ... Greta ... for goodness’ sake—”

Mr. Grindle came out and saw two little tiger cats make a rush at each other.

“Ladies ... ladies!” he cried. “That isn’t the way to settle a little argument, is it? Now go home like good girls. While there’s a war on we shouldn’t be fighting with each other like that.”

The sound of the foreman’s voice seemed to have a tranquillizing effect. The two girls fell apart looking rather shame-faced.

“Greta Jenkins insulted me,” said Betty. “I won’t take that from anyone.”

“There are some as can’t see a little joke,” said Greta. “No offence meant and that’s the truth. You ain’t got no sense of ’umour, Betty.”

“Oh, well, if you meant it as a joke,” said Betty.

Marjorie saw that an armistice had been declared. She made a dash for the factory gate. She had two minutes to catch the next bus to Ashleigh Heath—already full when it arrived so that she had to stand. A typical day in the life of Marjorie Manning, one unit in the monstrous regiment of women, recruited in a nation which knew that victory could only come by sacrifice, and hard work, and a loyalty of the spirit, and a sense of humour.