Dolly's War (16 page)

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We usually worked later than the Market staff so that Billingsgate was very quiet when the siren went one day in 1944. As the roof was entirely of glass Mr M insisted we should go down to the shelter for we could hear the ominous chug chug of a doodlebug (a pilotless aircraft!). We stood outside a gas decontamination shelter which had just been erected and watched the doodlebug as it motor-biked its way above us towards the buildings in King William Street, willing it to reach the river, but when it was overhead its engines cut out and in the ominous silence we three dived into the shelter. The explosion that followed partially demolished the shelter but we were only a little scratched though covered from head to foot in a sort of coarse grey powder (disintegrated breeze-blocks). As we made our way out of the shelter, Walter, always courteous and charmingly mannered, held out his hand to assist me over the rubble. As he did so he clutched hold of what appeared to be a hanging lavatory-chain and a stream of water poured down over him.

What a sight met our eyes when we arrived back in the office. Mr Mitchell had just completed the modernisation of the office. It had looked lovely, very American and elegant, but now it was an absolute wreck. In addition, fish had been blown up from the market and were lying in dusty and awkward positions everywhere, even on the mantelpiece and light brackets. I gazed at the three of us, like occupants of Mars, covered in grey dust, Walter streaky from his shower, Mr Mitchell's face a picture of tragic misery at the sight of his lovely office, and I started to laugh. Mr Mitchell had always seemed such a calm man I was surprised he got very cross with me, but of course I deserved it. Possibly his annoyance helped him to relieve his tension.

I decided that two lucky escapes was all I could expect during the war and again I took Susan to Suffolk.

The question of work now became an urgent matter. Susan was admitted to the little village school so that I should be free all day. Richard, Marjorie's little boy, was still too young to go even though the village schoolmistress helped mothers by taking the children earlier than normal. So it was decided if I could get a job somewhere my contribution to the housekeeping would enable Marjorie to stay at home and look after us all. On our walks through the countryside I had noticed some building activity in the grounds of a large country mansion. I discovered, on enquiry, that it was to be a hospital for American wounded. I went to the Labour Exchange in the nearby market town and through them obtained the position as secretary to an American Major, Milton J. Goldsmith. He was very sorry I had obtained the position through the Labour Exchange, for had I enquired at the hospital I would have been employed by the Americans under the lend-lease arrangement and received double the wages I did get. Although financially unlucky, it did not detract from my happy time there.

I felt, at first, a bit of a traitor working for the Americans, even though they were our allies. I felt I should really be working for the British forces, not only because I was receiving the British rate of pay, but because the British soldier was hard up compared with the Americans, and that hardly made for good relations between the two sides. Not that there was any open hostility, but there was no real social mixing at first between them. Indeed among the natives it was said of the Americans, ‘Overpaid, Oversexed and Over here', but I was always their staunch defender, although I understood how ‘our boys' felt. For one thing the feminine choice veered towards the Americans; one might say, they had so much more to give.

Milton J., my American, was a huge man with dark curly hair and an intensely shy manner. He hadn't been married very long and was very proud of his bride back in the States. I worked in a very hot Nissen hut with about sixty service men and Milton J. The first day I took dictation from him he signed some of the letters and was then called away. As all the letters he had signed had been word perfect, I assumed it was in order for me to sign the rest on his behalf. I was very pleased with myself for translating them so well for he had a strong American twang and dictated at great speed.

The next morning when I entered the Nissen hut to start work I was greeted by sixty American soldiers barking, whining and howling like dogs. The noise was incredible. I had heard them the day before discussing another soldier, saying, ‘Gee, he's a wolf,' and here was I faced with sixty wolves. Milton J. wasn't in the hut when the telephone rang. I lifted the phone, gave the name of the department, and there was actually another dog crying, barking and howling on the other end of the line. Then Milton J. arrived, laughing. At the end of all the letters I had signed I had typed what I thought Milton J. had dictated in his American twang ‘Towser'. It was perfectly obvious to me it was a code name to fox the enemy. Apparently it should have been E.T.O.U.S.A. (European Theatre of Operations, United States Army). Hence the howling. What an army I had got myself into. For ever after I was called Towser, but I had, through my innocent mistake, gained the reputation of having a great sense of humour, and from then on any remark of mine was greeted with more hilarity than I sometimes felt it deserved.

Marjorie and I once went for a walk with two G.I.s to meet the children from a party the troops gave for the local children. We weren't quite sure of the route and at one time thought we were lost. ‘You couldn't get lost in a little country like England, Dee,' said Marjorie. ‘No,' I countered, ‘but we might get DElayed for a couple of days.' Neither Marjorie nor I found this funny but the men were in hysterics and this remark was repeated all over the camp.

To add to my notoriety I was voted the girl ‘with the most terrific gams' on the camp. I honestly don't think there was much competition and since the prize for the winner was a week-end in ‘Cole-Chester' with the G.I. of my choice, I thought it was hardly worth winning. However, I've often wondered since what I missed by refusing such a prize!

News of my famous ‘gams' having spread, the office was continuously visited by ‘messengers' coming to the ‘wrong' department bearing the wrong messages. Milton J. thought they were coming to compare the merchandise with Betty Grable, and he decided the Nissen hut should be made into a private office for us so that we could get on with our work. Unfortunately, or perhaps unfortunately for some, war-time economy allowed only half walls and doors to Major J. and his secretary's sanctum so that I thought it looked a little bit like a large French lavatory. The walls came down only to my knees so that my gams were open for inspection all day long without the major knowing. Although outwardly modestly disdaining my premier position legs-wise, I was secretly a little bit pleased and took to wearing nylons to enhance my prancing legs, and there was no shortage of these. It was almost an admission price to the hospital.

As I gained an unsought-after reputation, by accident, I also gained a reputation for efficiency. After all, a new typist, doing unusual work, who could cope with everything, and still crack an unexpected joke, she must be extra-efficient, or so they thought. But one evening, as I was leaving, the Major hurried after me. I was detailed, the next morning, to take a shorthand report at a Court Martial. I could hardly sleep that night, there was no point in praying that the official military recorder would return, he was abroad on an urgent mission. My shorthand was adequate, but I was no Court reporter. I prayed that the prisoner might escape, and I had nightmares when I thought of the muddle I had got into in my single life at a court of enquiry as to a fire at a London bus depot. But that seemed simple now for I had had someone to help me sort it all out afterwards. Here I would be with American Brass Hats. How could I ask them, ‘What did he say then?' I could have stayed home with a bilious attack but a jeep was to call for me. Perhaps I would be arrested if I failed to appear.

At least, I thought, I shall be well garbed. When I had worked as an insurance agent I had become friendly with one of my customers, a middle-aged, ruddy-looking woman, cockney, hail-fellow-well-met. She had invited me in for a cup of tea. She was making a bread pudding, a gigantic affair, using the washing-up bowl for the bread from which she was squeezing the water. Every now and then she would remove a long hair from the mixture! She asked me if I liked bread pudding and my answer was gently negative. Now she said she had always admired my classy manner and could tell I was from a nice home, like a clergyman's. (Perhaps that is why my old Dagenham neighbour was sure I should have a piano, or an organ!) She had, she said, a Harris tweed costume which was ‘just me'. It was only £3. She brought out this costume, which was new, and genuine Harris tweed, one of those gingery ones that blue-blooded ladies used for country walking or shooting in. Clothes coupons being very tight I bought the suit, thinking it a bit strange when she advised me to ‘hide it somewhere' because of the neighbours. On my next call in addition to a marvellous brown pinafore-dress in wool georgette she had a quantity of real shantung blouses, and a dark-haired young man whom she introduced as ‘her lodger'. He was very handsome and very sleepy.

Now I began to be worried. I took the pinafore-dress and a lovely shantung blouse, but told her I could not have anything else because I had to send all my money into the country for my baby. I felt dreadful, my husband was fighting and his wife was acting against the war effort. I began to wish the lady would move, but one day she called me in for advice. She was pregnant! Was it the handsome young lodger, or her husband? I was astounded that the handsome young lodger could have desired my client, but she said it only happened because she had gone into the sitting-room straight after her bath! I can't remember advising her to ‘come clean' and confess to her husband but within a few weeks lodger, lady, children and husband were gone from the district, and sadly I heard they were killed in an air-raid.

I would wear the brown pinafore-dress and shantung blouse to the Court Martial. There were a few wolf whistles as I went into our Nissen hut the next morning to collect my pad and pencil. A Sergeant sharpened it at both ends for me. I asked him if a man was guilty of a serious crime whether he was shot in war-time, if he was not at the battle-front. ‘Oh, yes, Towser,' he said. ‘You'll be in at the shooting so be careful what you take down.' My colleagues laughed as I left the hut and I arrived trembling at the Court. It was held in a building attached to the main hospital. There were two American guards on the door; no one could enter without their credentials being closely scrutinised.

If my nyloned entry and my being a female, made any impression it was difficult to tell, for all the brass hats looked so severe, it was terrifying for me and must have been torture for the prisoner, who was standing to attention in the dock. He was a tall good-looking young man something like Clark Gable. I had no idea what he was charged with and I hoped I would be able to take shorthand fast enough or legibly enough to discover his crime, for by the looks on the faces of the prosecutors he must have been a heinous fellow.

At the other end of the room were double doors with a brass bar across each one, like the cinema doors which the attendants open with a clatter to let the audience out. There were no guards on this door and I assumed in a vague way that it was locked and guarded.

The Court was in session. I was called upon to swear under the flag. Now I could understand patriotism, for the sight of the Stars and Stripes sent a tingle down my spine. The Prosecutor began. One point on my pencil broke, it seemed like a pistol-shot in that solemn room. Grateful to my Sergeant, I turned my pencil round. I must be careful not to press so hard, I thought. I was not worried that I couldn't get the prisoner's army number down, I knew I'd be given that afterwards and I began to keep pace with the case. I was rather startled that they kept calling the prisoner A. Wall, for I was sure that wasn't his name in the beginning and they seemed to say his name in the strangest places that didn't make sense. The pace hotted up and I had forgotten everything except my shorthand, when suddenly there came a heavy crash at the end of the room. The ‘cinema' doors opened with a mighty blow and in came ‘Dirty Gertie' with the very latest in cleaning equipment, a monster vacuum-cleaner. She was a civilian employed by the British Government to clean parts of the hospital. She had been bombed out from London, her name was Gertie and I don't know where the ‘Dirty' came from or indeed why this appellation was tacked on to her name, possibly because the words rhymed. She was a large, fat, peroxided woman who always wore the latest fashions, which looked incongruous on her. She had thick wedged-heel shoes which she seemed to have difficulty in lifting from the floor, and the dog-end of an American cigarette hanging from her mouth. The whole Court gazed at Gertie in a stupor. She ignored everyone as though we were invisible to her, and plugged in her new electric invention which made an unholy noise in that place of legal severity. The President of the Court recovered first and began shouting loudly at Gertie above the noise. Finally she realised her attention was being sought but without turning the cleaner off she mouthed, ‘You'll have to shout, I can't hear you above this noise.' Finally one of the guards pulled the plug from the wall and the President said quite calmly, as though Gertie was an alien he had to placate, ‘Can't you do that when the court rises?' Said Gertie laconically, ‘Needs must when the devil drives!' and plugging in again, she resumed her conscientious cleaning. I was wondering what would happen when she reached us humans proper, I was sure she'd say, ‘Mind out of my way! I have to work even if you lot have got nothing better to do than sit around staring at each other.' Perhaps she thought we were all rehearsing for a Camp concert. However, she was at last unplugged and marched off by the guards, her last remark being, ‘Well, you can get your wives to soil their hands. I can't come back and clean this afternoon.'