Dolly's War (18 page)

Suddenly from among a nearby group of airmen I heard one say, ‘O.K. then, I'll take the Duchess,' and a tall good-looking serviceman approached me and said, ‘Take my arm then, Duchess.' He had obviously been drinking and so had his companions. ‘I'm waiting for the Duke,' I replied, and trying to take a quick note of my bearings I walked in the direction of the music. The dance was held in a sort of hangar. It was a mass of jigging couples, not dancing at all in the way Marjorie and I had been used to. I found a seat and sat down in a corner, willing the next five hours to fly. An air-force sergeant came up and I went on to the ‘floor' with him. Cheek to alcoholic cheek we ‘danced', me struggling with Marjorie's stole, my evening bag, and his hands, which seemed to be so tired they could only rest on my bottom. At last the music stopped. The sergeant looked at me, gazed at my outfit, and said, ‘Gee, you're a real classy dame, I bet you don't come from these parts.' ‘No,' I said, pleased that the dance had stopped, ‘I come from London.' He looked as though he'd been presented with the Purple Heart for he said delightedly, ‘Anywhere near Piccadilly or Ly-cest-er Square?' ‘Oh, no,' I said, wondering why he had picked on that area. ‘Come and have something to drink,' he said. Pleased not to be asked to dance again I went with him to the refreshment room. He seemed disappointed I only wanted Coke but he looked nicer now he was off the dance floor, and as he also had a Coke I began to think I was mistaken in thinking he had been drinking, for he began to speak so sensibly. He was a Texan, married, very happily, it seemed and he had two children. I began to relax; the next few hours would pass safely in the company of this happily married man, and I would never have to come to a camp dance again.

It was dark now, but the weather humid, and when Carl, for that was his name, invited me for a walk to cool off before we resumed dancing, I agreed. Heads did turn as we walked through the hall, for Carl was one of those tall, well-built Texans, and he had that sinuous easy glide such Texans have. It is true I am short, but all done up in velvet and mock diamonds, we were certainly an outstanding pair.

We walked round the camp, Carl put my arm in his, and all was quite pleasant, minutes ticking away easily for me, until we rounded a tall hedge bordering the lawn of a garden. Suddenly Carl's arm went round me and he began to bite my neck. He didn't expect my kick on his shin and as he reeled back I kicked off my high-heeled shoes and began to run like mad towards the lights of the Camp. When I was nearing the safety of the dance hall I looked back and saw my Texan walking quickly in my direction. A jeep was outside the dance-hall, the driver just getting in. I said to him breathlessly, ‘Is it possible you can give me a lift, I've just had an urgent message from home.' Whether it was my phantom-of-the-opera-like appearance or the hint of tragedy in my urgent message I don't know, for Army and Air Force personnel do not give lifts to anyone, especially civilians, without chitties or some official permit, but to my delight he agreed, and I arrived back to the blessed haven of our cottage. My missing shoes puzzled Marjorie for a long, long time. I should have realised a casual ‘Oh, I forgot I had them on,' would not be an acceptable explanation to her.

The dances at the American hospital were very different and pleasant social evenings. The G.I.s had an old-fashioned courtesy and charming manners. Our special group were young men from the laboratory, only one of them, Felix, was married. Marjorie taught them the English ballroom dancing and we had pleasant if uninspired Saturdays. Until the Saturday Felix suggested we take a turn round the grounds between dances. There was no worry of neck-biting or anything untoward with Felix, he was a typical specimen of clean-living American manhood, the sort of fellow I would one day like for a son. Suddenly he said, ‘I saw the M.O. today.' ‘Oh, I am sorry, Felix,' I said. ‘Anything serious?' ‘Oh, no,' he said, ‘Nothing medically wrong, it's just that when a man has been married and is then separated from his wife for a long time, it can affect his health.' I was silent, embarrassment beginning to creep over me; how stupid I am, I thought, Felix obviously wants to talk to me as a mother-figure. ‘There is no solution, though, is there, Felix?' I said. ‘Well,' said Felix, ‘there is. The Doctor knows you very well and he knows you too are separated from your husband, and that the separation will be a long one. He knows, too, that you are a clean-living girl and he thought it would be a good idea, not hurting anyone, for we both love our partners, if you and I could form some sort of association, and be faithful to each other. In that way, we'd be happy, and not be hurting anyone else.' I was silent, seething because the Doctor's diagnosis was, to me, a real insult. He was a real dish and lately had been making special trips to the office, or on Saturdays at the dances, to chat with me. I thought he had ‘fallen' for me and I was toying with the thought in my mind, would I, should I, if he approached me. So that's why he had been gazing at me, summing me up as a sort of pill, a tonic, a prescription for one of his patients. Then I looked at Felix, he was looking so pleadingly at me that although I felt cross with him I also felt sorry for him; perhaps it was worse for a man than a woman. But as for the other matter, good God, I was his friend, his confidante, I felt old enough to be his mother, why I was ten years, no, six years older than he. ‘Well, Felix,' I said, ‘I am sorry that if you love your wife you cannot be strong-willed enough to be faithful to her. I could never ever be unfaithful to my husband, for any man.' I kept my fingers crossed as these words of near-mendacity issued from my lips. ‘Please don't stop being friends with me, Towser,' said Felix. ‘I knew you would say no, but the Doctor said approach the matter from a humanist point of view.' I had no idea there was such a word as ‘humanist' and I assumed it should have been ‘humane'. On Monday morning the Doctor came into the office. The Major was not there. ‘Did you see Felix at the dance on Saturday?' he asked, adding, ‘I saw him across the parade-ground, but he kept on walking.' ‘Oh, like his namesake,' I said, still typing. This feeble joke was obviously lost on him for he suddenly jumped back from me, startled. ‘Do you feel all right?' he asked. ‘Yes, of course I do,' I replied. ‘Well, I don't want to worry you, my dear, but you look jaundiced, to me.' ‘Jaundiced!' I screamed, thinking he was crazy, but as he was a good medical man, I was a little perturbed. ‘Look here,' he said, ‘I'll give you a pass, go to the laboratory and have a check-up, it'll only take a minute.' He put a form on my desk and left the room hurriedly for he saw my Major approaching. ‘What did he want again?' asked the Major. ‘He says I'm jaundiced,' I said, ‘and he suggests I have a test at the lab.' ‘Come here, Towser,' he said, walking to the window. ‘Well,' he said, after gazing closely at my face, ‘I can't see any change in you.' Then he added, ‘You've got those tawny sort of eyes and freckles, they go with your colour of hair. Why is he so interested in you all of a sudden?' I was much too shy with the Major to tell him that the Doctor wished to make a prescription of me. Soon the whole hut was in examining ‘Towser' and all came to the same conclusion, the Doctor was wrong. But I went to the laboratory just to prove he was wrong. The boys there too were interested, Eddie, Bill and Gerry, our Saturday-night friends. The test was O.K. I was not jaundiced, well not medically or physically so, but temperamentally I was extremely jaundiced with the Doctor.

In the week he invited me to dinner and the theatre, and I thought this would be the opportunity for me to ‘have it out with him'. I knew I looked nice when I met him and we had a marvellous evening, with drinks after the theatre, so that, more relaxed, I took up the matter of Felix. He had told Felix what Felix had told me, but was indignant that Felix should have chosen me for his physick. He hadn't even mentioned my name, indeed he would not; why, he wanted me for himself. I could see this was true, and indeed he was an attractive man. The night was balmy, and so must I have been, for I was sure I would end up in some grassy buttercupped meadow by the side of a scented hedge. It was three miles from the theatre to my cottage, we started walking. With my companion's arm round my waist, my head on his shoulder, we fitted perfectly, and walked happily to what might just prove to be our mutual resting-place.

Suddenly, just as we had decided to turn off from the road, an American Staff car stopped. The driver got out, saluted smartly, and said, ‘May I give you a lift back to Camp, Sir?' In the back of the car was my Major. He opened the door and said, ‘We can drop Towser first.' There was nothing for it, the Major was like a watch-dog. The Doctor could not blemish my reputation by saying he wouldn't be going straight back to Camp and he knew that the Major knew that I lived in the village with Marjorie and the children. Obviously that was where I had seemed to be going and the car would save me a walk.

I got in the car as the Doctor said under his breath, ‘Dammit, I could spit.' The Major asked, ‘Was the play good?' I started to laugh, which started the Major and the driver off, but not the Doctor. He remained silent. Next day he was transferred and was sent to Italy.

*

The G.I.s were always cheerful and there was much teasing and friendly rivalry between us as to the merits of our respective armies. The Americans thought our press very strange in its reports of the war. I was greeted one day with, ‘Towser, you're doing well, your Monty's a marvel. Do you know he's actually gained an “inch” of territory from the Germans today?' The headline splashed across the paper, read, ‘Monty's troops inch forward.' They brought a foot ruler to impress on me how well Monty was doing.

But of course I had my own back. One of my duties was the typing of the payroll for the incoming wounded. Always a rush job and sometimes I would stay late in the evening to complete it. On the pay parade-morning the walking wounded would come in in ones or twos, in dressing-gowns, or perhaps just pyjamas, casually collect their money from the Major, and saunter out. After a most bloody battle in Germany, a trainload of British wounded were temporarily accommodated over-night at the American hospital and the Major and I worked late on the payroll for the Tommies. Next morning in came the English wounded and I could hardly stem my tears. Many of the men were badly wounded, yet their clothes were tidy, there was no slouching and they all managed a salute -a most disciplined and military payroll parade. All was quiet in the Nissen hut after the last Tommy had left. But the next payroll day the poor wounded G.I.s must have wondered what had hit them for Milton J. had them ‘marched' in with a sergeant and they all saluted. As the last American left Milton J. looked at me and said, ‘Maa,' just as we did when we were children and of course we both laughed. ‘I didn't know it showed,' I said. But we both knew it wasn't the saluting or the spit and polish which counted, for one could not but admire the Americans' spirit and buoyancy and I never ceased to be amazed at their talent for efficient organisation. The whole camp ran on oiled wheels without the superfluous intrusion of bureaucracy or red tape. They were kind and generous people (and I'm not thinking of the Simnel cake episode) and extremely outgoing.

Chas was now out of North Africa and we had been apart for nearly three years. He tried to be amusing in his letters, but a serious man by nature, I know he was trying to make the best of things. Always a bad sailor, he would have been sea-sick in a rowing-boat on glass; the journey away from England must have been sheer torture. Loaded to capacity with British and American soldiers, the diet was stew, or as one G.I. remarked, ‘Bloody boiled sheep again.' The Americans would shoot crap, or play cards, and in the enclosed conditions knife-fights often took place. Chas said no one was ever hurt, it was just a show of strength. Nerves were frayed to breaking-point. To get to meals or even to the lavatory, meant hours of endless queuing. Then something went wrong with the steering and they couldn't keep up with the convoy, a sitting-duck for a German submarine. Chas was working night and day in North Africa and Italy. At least he had air to breathe. He was in charge of troop-movement schedules and many famous names passed through the R.A.T.D. Depot, among them Harry Secombe. I think he was ‘resting' after having been wounded. He was very popular, always a fine chap, and used to entertain the men with farmyard imitations, ‘Here comes Farmer Brown with his dog.' I suppose with a passing population his act was always fresh!

Since he received his black eye on initial training Chas had always been a unit clerk and not called upon to bear arms or shoot, but at one time it was ‘everybody out', for German parachutists were landing in a nearby corn-field where the corn really was ‘as high as an elephant's eye'. Chas said he was very relieved not to meet a German parachutist in the corn-field. Word went round that the Germans were disguised as nuns! I wondered, if Chas would be quick enough to gain the initiative, or if he would give a ‘nun' too much time to prove that she was a lady, for I couldn't imagine him shooting in cold blood.

Chas had a fine officer, a Captain Derek Attwood, a wonderful cricketer and footballer, from Bromley in Kent, my father's old stamping-ground. This officer nearly lost his life swimming miles out to sea to rescue one of his men who had got into difficulties. The sea was so rough that the boat the men tried to launch capsized and was tossed up and down like a cockleshell. He ordered all his men to stay on the shore and dragging the boat he swam out to sea, somehow got the man in the boat and swam back with it. He was all-in, and the man he rescued was black with having been in the water so long. It was a miracle they both recovered. But to Chas's amazement after this life-and-death struggle with the elements the Captain still emerged wearing his peaked cap and with his gun still in its holster.