A Summer Promise (22 page)

Marigold had giggled and raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes, I know, but at least whoever was supervising me wouldn’t be an old farm worker with no teeth and black fingernails,’ she had insisted. ‘And I’ve heard land girls grumbling in the pub on a Saturday night. Why, for all their hard work and the promises the government have made, they don’t get any extra food. No, you won’t persuade me, especially when I think of the uniform: great baggy breeches, enormous clodhopping shoes and overalls which go over your shoulders and button at the back so you can’t pop behind a hedge if you get caught short and want a pee. Well, you could, but by the time you’d got yourself out of the overalls everyone would know damned well where you were going and why.’

Maddy had sighed deeply, and nodded agreement when Marigold had put forward her most cogent argument. ‘My birthday’s practically a whole year before yours; we’ll tell whoever’s in the recruiting office that we were at school together,’ she had reminded her friend, ‘so if we hand over our birth certificates at the same time, with mine on top, and tell the sergeant or corporal or they aren’t going to so much as glance at yours, particularly now you’ve grown so tall; in fact they’ll probably think you’re older than me. So if you’re truly determined to become an army lass it’ll have to be in the ATS with me. And anyway, though I know you were secretly hoping to be a land girl at Larkspur, it wouldn’t happen, you know. Everyone tells you that all the services like to put square pegs in round holes, and I’m sure the Land Army is no exception.’

‘All right,’ Maddy had said reluctantly, and had accompanied her friend to the recruiting office, reflecting gloomily that she might have guessed how the disagreement would end. Marigold was famous for always getting her own way. Within a week, both Marigold and Maddy had received a letter telling them that they had been accepted by the ATS and were to report to Durham Barracks, where they would receive their official training. It was here, too, that they might choose a trade, though whether they would get their choice they doubted.

Now, as they approached the long counter, Maddy looked at the girls ahead of her. They were a very mixed bunch. A number had clearly decided to wear their best clothing, which included high-heeled pumps and saucy little hats dipped over their eyes. Others wore skirts and jumpers and elderly mackintoshes, and yet others were in school uniform, though they had done their best to disguise the fact. Marigold and Maddy wore what they had worn to the factory, since they had been told that their clothing would be taken away and only given back at the end of hostilities.

‘So wear something you can afford to be without,’ the recruiting sergeant had advised them. ‘What you’ll get give is practical warm clothing, just like everyone else, so no point in tarting yourself up.’

As they neared the counter behind which a number of elderly men were sorting out clothing, Marigold nudged Maddy. ‘Some of these girls look really rough,’ she whispered. ‘You’d better not talk posh, Maddy; you know what happened at the factory.’

Maddy shuddered. All the girls in the factory had spoken with broad Yorkshire accents, and until she and Marigold had been advised by the supervisor to imitate their co-workers they had been more or less ostracised; an unpleasant experience which neither had suffered from before. ‘But I’m sure that won’t apply in the ATS; if you look at the girls picking up their uniforms they’re a pretty mixed lot,’ she said. ‘And they aren’t by any means all Yorkshire. I’ve heard Cockney, Liverpudlian, Norfolk and Welsh at least, so I don’t think they’ll gang up against us.’

She was about to expand on this theme when Marigold gave a squeak of dismay. ‘Oh, Maddy, I never even thought we might get separated so early, but the sergeant on the end of the counter is sending some girls to the left and some to the right. Oh well, when he isn’t looking we’ll match up again.’

Presently, they reached the head of the queue and a short, fat sergeant, wearing steel-rimmed glasses and a sour expression, passed one glaring glance over Marigold, sorted out a pile of clothing and pushed it across to her. ‘If something don’t fit, come back,’ he ordered. Then he glanced up at Maddy – five foot nine in her stockinged feet – and gasped. ‘Big ’un here, Greg,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Have we gorra skirt what’ll fit a geeraffe?’

There was mocking laughter from the men sorting uniforms in the background, but one of them, a tall, fair-haired man with a humorous face, grinned at Maddy and handed her a skirt which would be, she judged, just about the right length. ‘There you are, beautiful,’ he said. He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘The sarge is just jealous; he’d give a month’s pay to have a few more inches.’

Maddy smiled at him. ‘Why are they dividing us up?’ she asked. ‘I want to be with my pal.’

The man called Greg looked slightly embarrassed. ‘You’ll join up again once you leave the building,’ he assured her. ‘First you have a few inspections . . .’ He cast an appraising glance over Marigold’s glowing golden locks and then at Maddy’s straight and silky hair. ‘Don’t worry, it’s a bit like being a horse before a sale. They check your hair for nits, your teeth for fillings, your skin for scabies . . . well, I dare say you know the sort of thing.’

‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ Maddy said doubtfully. ‘We had a physical of sorts when we volunteered, and they told us we’d be having something called an FFI every six months or so. What does that stand for?’

Greg hesitated, but there was still a twinkle in his eye, though his cheeks had reddened. ‘Er . . . Free From Infection,’ he said finally. ‘We get a rum lot wanting to join. But you and your pal will be just fine. And now grab your irons and move along or you’ll be getting me into trouble.’

Marigold started to ask what her irons were but Maddy elbowed her in the ribs. ‘Don’t you
read
Tom’s letters?’ she hissed as with a final wink Greg turned back to his piles of clothing. ‘He told me that if you lose your irons in the desert you’ll be eating like monkeys, from your hand, because you won’t get replacements; it made me laugh.’

‘He might have put it in your letter but it wasn’t in mine,’ Marigold said grumpily as they waited for their medical inspections, which they were able to face much more calmly than they would have done had Greg not warned them what lay ahead. Dismissed, they were sent straight to their hut with their bedding rolls, issue pyjamas and toiletries.

Apparently the army did not provide soap or toothpaste, and when they visited the ablutions hut they realised that it was pretty stingy with hot water as well. They washed themselves in cold, brushed their hair, collected their irons and the tin mug with which every new entrant had been presented, and with a deep sigh from Marigold, and an almost deeper one from Maddy, they set off to the cookhouse. This was a large wooden building, well provided with metal chairs and tables, and needless to say there was already a queue of soldiers heading for the long counter behind which stood the catering staff, armed with large ladles and other kitchen equipment. Watching what the men and women in front of her did, Marigold helped herself to a tin plate and held it out rather in the manner of Oliver Twist. The first man sloshed what was probably stew on to it, the second contributed mashed potato, the third added cabbage and the fourth slopped a gooey mess on another tin plate.

‘That’s your puddin’, queen,’ he informed her, seeing her puzzled face. ‘It’s plum duff. Want some custard?’

Marigold took one look at the bright yellow goo and shook her head. ‘No thanks. I’m sure the duff will be delicious without it,’ she said mendaciously. ‘Come along, Maddy. We’ve got to get outside this lot before we can make our beds, and someone told me there’s a really good NAAFI on this site where they sometimes hold dances. Feel like treading the light fantastic?’

Maddy felt more like diving straight into bed, but this was the first time her friend had shown any enthusiasm for anything so she said, rather reluctantly, that she would be happy to find out what sort of dance they were holding. Presently, food eaten and beds made up, they asked directions to the NAAFI and slogged through the snow to the building indicated.

As Maddy had known she would, Marigold made a great hit with all the men present and clearly enjoyed both dancing and flirting with them, but Maddy could not help wondering what Tom was doing. Marigold was making no secret of her liking for Tom and did not show Maddy his letters to her, although his epistles to herself, Maddy reflected dismally, were pretty harmless. He must know I like him, she had told herself after one rather stilted letter, and I shouldn’t mind who
he
likes so long as he comes home safely. Now, glancing out of the windows of the NAAFI building, she wished fervently that she could send him, sweltering in the desert, a sack full of snow and ice. Her imagination, never far behind the rest of her, conjured up a magic carpet – no, two magic carpets, one of which would carry snow to Tom and the other to ferry back the burning hot sand to spread all around their horribly cold quarters. But it was no use wishing, and no use either to blame Marigold, who was flirting delightfully with a handsome aircraftman. Apparently there was an airfield not two miles away. When they had worked in the factory, Maddy had been shocked at first by the way her friend behaved. She had taxed her with it but Marigold had merely widened her eyes and assured her that it was all a bit of fun. Then she had stunned Maddy by announcing that she would probably marry Tom when the war was over.

‘Not if he finds out about the way you’ve been behaving in his absence,’ Maddy had said waspishly, after a brief pause. ‘No one would ever guess you had a boyfriend fighting Rommel in the desert.’

She had looked accusingly at Marigold as she spoke, but Marigold had merely giggled. ‘I’m not engaged to Tom, you know; he’d be the first to tell me to enjoy myself while I had the chance. But of course I know that you’re in love with him yourself – or would be, if you knew what love was.’

The idea of being in love with Tom had come as a complete surprise. There had, of course, been that stab of what could only have been jealousy in the caves, and the wild disappointment she had felt on learning she had missed his visit to Larkspur, but still, the thought of being in his arms on the dance floor was all wrong. Somehow she had managed to get this across to Marigold and was rather surprised when her friend had nodded sagely, lowering her voice and saying she understood. ‘I’m a bit like that over our supervisor. I know he’s not in the forces because of having his foot blown off during the evacuation of Dunkirk, but sometimes I think he’s the best and kindest man I’ve ever known . . .’

‘And the only one you know with a wife and three children,’ Maddy had snapped. ‘Don’t you go messing with married men or you’ll find yourself in real trouble. Stick to Tom; and anyway, Tom is much, much handsomer than Mr Crowdy.’

But that had been a long time ago; right now the gramophone record had been taken off its turntable and the dance was over, so Maddy and Marigold joined the rush of girls heading for bed. From what they had been told, the time they spent here would probably be the toughest they would ever spend anywhere, so they should always sleep when they could.

When they got to the door a sergeant was blocking their way. ‘Tomorrow morning you must be up at reveille,’ he told them. ‘You’ve got a deal of training to do so you’d best not be late. Reveille’s at seven in the winter and breakfast is served from seven thirty. It’ll be followed by a medical which will include a fair number of injections.’ He grinned at them. ‘They say first come first served, but that ain’t what we say in the army. It’s first come gets the sharpest needle, and believe me there’s a deal of difference between being stabbed early and having the MO struggling to get the needle in if you’re amongst the last. Now off to your huts.’

It was still snowing and after the relative warmth of the NAAFI Maddy’s chilblains flamed with dismay as the cold bit into them, but it was no use standing out here gazing around. Dimly, in the distance, she could see the row of wooden huts, and grabbing Marigold’s arm she made straight for them.

‘I bags the bottom bunk,’ Marigold said as soon as they had shut the door behind them. She shivered. ‘My God, it’s as cold in here as it is outside. Isn’t there a stove of some description?’

A stockily built girl with dark hair cropped short and a cheery grin pulled a face and shook her head. ‘No, nothing so civilised,’ she said in a strong Welsh accent. ‘My orders were to bring a rubber hot water bottle but there’s no means of heating the water to put inside it so I suppose this is what the men call “hardening off”. I’ve put my pyjamas on over most of my underclothes just so’s I shan’t freeze; advise you to do the same, I would. We’ll indent for one of them tortoise stoves as soon as we’re up tomorrow.’

Most of the girls were either already in bed or preparing to be so, but the one nearest to them shook a sorrowful head. ‘This is a training camp especially for the ATS. Dozens and dozens of girls have slept in these huts, wrapped in their blankets, only to find their washing water frozen solid in the morning. Do you think none of them tried to persuade the authorities to give them a stove of some description? Of course they did, but the army’s mean as hell to their soldiers and twice as mean to us, because they’ve been trained to believe we’re the weaker sex. Now go to sleep and remember we’re only here for a month; after that things must surely get better.’

Maddy dived beneath her blanket and was about to prepare for sleep when she was reminded of the old rule: last in puts the light out. Reluctantly she wriggled out again and dropped on to the icy linoleum. A quick sprint up to the door, a snatch at the switch which doused the one small electric bulb and a hasty, toe-curling scamper and she was back in bed. ‘Goodnight all,’ she shouted. ‘See you in the morning; and let’s hope it’s a better one!’

There was a chorus of goodnights and one voice rose above the others, that of the corporal who slept, curtained off from the rest of the girls, at the very end of the hut. ‘Thanks for remembering to turn off the light. Goodnight, everyone,’ she said drowsily. ‘We’ll get to know one another in the morning. Sweet dreams.’