Ruby's War (11 page)

She sat on the bed and inspected the unknown craftswoman's skill. The seams were bound with silk, each buttonhole hand-stitched and each stitch a perfect match. If the dress had been a painting, the skill of its creator would have been applauded. At first, she'd hated the idea of the handmade dress, but on the day of the funeral, when she slipped it on, Ruby had felt special, as though the funeral was part of a film and she was the star. She'd enjoyed the fuss, the attention, but afterwards, when the dress was folded away, the horror crept up on her; her foolish, sweet mother had gone. Then she began to feel annoyed: it was typical of silly, flighty Pearl to step out in front of a taxi in the blackout and leave her. Then came the half-remembered arguments, the times she'd made her mother cry. How Ruby wished she hadn't sulked when her mother had left her alone in the evenings, and that she'd pretended to be pleased by the little presents
of sweets and cheap trinkets Pearl brought back to make amends.

‘Is that the dress you got for the funeral?' Sadie asked, eyeing her sympathetically through the door. ‘Mum sent me up to see how you was getting on. She's set on you keeping this job. You haven't half grown. Quite the young lady,' she said, giving Ruby's arm a squeeze. ‘You'll have to start wearing a bra. Don't look like that. You can't stop nature. If you're going to play for these posh folk, they'll expect you to dress the part.' Sadie sat on the floor and inspected the hem on the dress. ‘We can lengthen the skirt and put a new top on. I've a blouse I don't wear that will do, pale blue and black. We can unpick this at the waist. It would look funny wearing an evening frock and no bra. At this rate, you'll still be wearing these bloody gymslips when you're sixty.'

‘Who do you like best?' Ruby asked, struggling out of the dress. ‘Bo or Con?'

‘Con's a nice lad,' Sadie said, lifting her hair up and gazing in the mirror, ‘but he's just a kid. Bo said he lied about his age to get in the army.'

Michael Holt was waiting by the farm gate, his cigarette a dancing pin of light in the blackness. He'd been reluctant to leave the fireside with the sleepy cats and the nodding farmer and his wife. Since they arrived in England, his feeling of resentment against the army had deepened. The only place Holt felt safe was at the farm. He would have liked to stay there in the barn, working on the tractor, listening as John moved among the slow, easy weight of the cows in the byre next door. At the camp there was
a feeling of threat and violence. The men were packed in close together with nothing to occupy them and told to look busy, but most of the time there was nothing for them to do, so they lazed around and took their anger out on each other over stupid grievances. And when the trucks were sent out, they were often sent to pick up stuff that hadn't arrived and could spend days waiting for things that didn't come, or had been delivered to the wrong place. They could have been training. None of them had been given much basic weapons practice. The guys who'd done basic training with him were only ever issued with wooden guns. And it wasn't as though there weren't any weapons in the camp, but the rumour was that the captain had orders not to issue them unless the Germans landed.

Holt climbed on to the top rung of the wooden gate, his cigarette cupped protectively in his hand, and sat down. The damp autumn air felt raw and he shivered. He could hear the clatter of the railway points in the distance, then the click of Henry's front door, followed by the sound of chuckling and whispered conversation. He put out his cigarette, and settled the metal engine part he hoped to replace into the pocket of his tunic for safe keeping, contenting himself with the idea that he would be able to get something to replace the worn part at the camp. Holt loved engines and was happiest when he was solving a problem, repairing a fault, or finding a solution. He'd spent the whole day stripping down John Bardley's tractor, kneeling in the empty barn, cleaning, testing and tinkering. Parts for the old tractor were impossible to find, and John Bardley had crouched at his side, his
mild, worried eyes following each step of the process. The Bardleys, Marge and John, put their faith in his assurances that he could fix the engine. They treated him with respect, and Marge welcomed him into her kitchen, feeding him, listening to his stories of home and calling him ‘son' so naturally that it made him want to weep.

Holt fell in behind his buddies, his boots in time with theirs, until their laughter subsided and they all tramped along in silence, each with his own thoughts, each reluctant to return to the camp and the indignities the army meted out to the black soldiers.

‘You got that old tractor fixed, Holt?' Bo asked.

‘Nope, but I think I know where I can get a part. Going to see the sergeant in charge of the workshops.'

‘I heard they're sayin' too many passes have been handed out.'

‘No point keepin' us in, when there's no work. Could give us battlefield training, if they weren't so jumpy.'

‘Black GIs with guns? Lieutenant Roach won't wear that.'

‘Then they'll say we're no good for fighting. It's them that's afraid who we might want to fight,' Holt said.

‘They reckon there's more coming next week.'

‘There's going to be trouble. All these guys and nothing to do.'

‘They should be happy we're keepin' ourselves busy. Holt, you know the words to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”? I mean, all the way through?'

‘No, why?'

‘I promised Sadie I'd sing something at her friend's wedding,' Bo said.

‘Wedding? You never sung in church.'

‘Sure, I did. I sung as a little boy.'

‘One minute you're shouting about how the army's treating us and handing out newspapers,' Con said over his shoulder. ‘Next minute—'

‘Who asked you?'

‘I'm just saying.'

‘Well don't. Mind your own business.'

‘Do you know she has a boyfriend who's a POW?'

‘Who?'

‘Sadie, you know who.'

‘No, she ain't. He's just a friend. Now mind your own business. You're just a kid. You keep out of it or—'

‘What about “Deep River”?' Wes suggested.

Con dropped back and listened to the two men softly crooning.

‘Take no notice of Bo,' Holt said. ‘He don't mean no harm. Always been the same. Any pretty girl can lead old Bo round by the nose. And anyway, none of these girls are as pretty as the black girls back home.'

The next day Bo and Con stayed out of each other's way. In the camp, Bo was well known and admired because he spoke his mind. As other soldiers arrived, he passed around copies of
The People's Voice
and other black newspapers. Bo had contacts. The papers argued that the army was ill-treating the black soldiers and called for an end to segregated units. Bo set up meetings. Con had been to some of them. Bo explained the arguments, but sometimes his papers and his discussions helped to stoke the resentment, creating ripples of impotent anger that, from what Con could see, just made things worse.

At some meetings he got the guys who'd come from the Southern states to tell what had happened to them. Con knew about the South. His grandma had come north after she'd married, but she'd always thought of it as her home. Today, a guy was telling a tale about a group of black soldiers that had been taken out of one of the training camps in the South and made to work in the fields for a white senator. Con sat on the edge of the crowd and listened to the soldier sitting next to Bo.

‘… and when we complained,' the soldier said, ‘the colonel sent armed MPs to make sure we carried out his orders.'

The atmosphere made Con edgy, and when Wes suggested he help to find some wood for one of Henry's projects, he was happy to slip away. Their luck was in; they found a pile of rough-sawn timber and a driver who was leaving for the port with an empty truck. He helped them load it and agreed to drop it off at the cottage.

When they arrived next day, Henry was delighted with the uneven lengths of timber.

‘Just do me fine, lads,' he said. ‘We'll have a brew, and then measure up. I've promised the old girl at the end cottage I'll knock up some shelves for her. Should be worth a couple of pints.'

The whole ground floor of Mrs Bland's cottage was little bigger than a single garage and almost as dark and cheerless. Con, whose bedroom at home in Detroit was larger than the living room in Henry's cottage, gazed around in amazement. The old lady smiled at them over the tea chests stacked four high in the tiny room.

‘I've drawn this to indicate where I would like you to
put the shelves,' she said handing Henry a sketch.

He took the paper and tilted his cap on to the back of his head.

‘Looks like there's one on every wall, missus,' he said.

‘That's right, and then I would like some in my bedroom. I thought if I used the empty chests for my clothes, the rest of the wall space would hold a considerable amount.'

‘We'll have to carry some outside to make room to work.'

‘Oh, they mustn't get damp.' Mrs Bland patted the tea chest's coarse wood. ‘They've suffered enough already with smoke and then water …'

‘It'll be fine, missus,' Henry soothed, ‘weather's set fair, and we'll bring 'em back in before we go.'

They worked steadily, measuring, cutting and nailing. Henry proved to be an almost instinctual craftsman, first studying the space thoughtfully, riddling and sucking his teeth, before marking the wood to show them where to saw. He was rarely out in his calculations, and by late afternoon, they'd fixed the wooden batons on both sides of the chimney and shelving had been constructed from floor to ceiling on the opposite wall.

‘We'll just sweep up in here, missus,' he said, ‘and then bring them boxes back in. There's enough shelves there for you to start unpacking some of them books. That should keep you busy for a couple of days. I'll come back later and nail the rest of the shelves in place. Then the next time these lads get a pass out, we'll have a look at the upstairs.'

‘If we take a look now,' Wes said, ‘I'd know how much timber to get.'

‘Make it soon, will you lad,' Henry said, following Mrs Bland up the stairs. ‘I need something to keep me out of Jenny's way. The place is full of women and sewing. They were all stitching away when I left, finishing a frock for our Ruby. And then there's stuff for this wedding all over the place as well.'

The house had one bedroom and a tiny space at the top of the stairs. The only furniture upstairs was a single bed. When he heard the door of Henry's cottage slam, Con walked over to the window and bent down to peer through.

‘Is Sadie going to work today?' he asked.

‘No, she's helping Ruby to get ready, and Lou's there as well with her chap. That'll be Ruby off to the doctor's,' Henry said, as Ruby hurried by wearing a headscarf to cover her newly curled hair.

Henry gazed around the tiny room. ‘You want shelves on all these walls?' he asked, consulting the sketch.

‘Yes, I'll have my bed in the centre, and then a couple more shelves on the landing. Do you think you can get enough wood?'

Wes nodded. ‘We got stacks of the stuff. We just need to fix a pass out and get the load dropped off.'

‘Will you listen to that,' Henry said, ducking his head to look through the window. ‘He's got the bugger going.'

On the opposite side of the road, they could see John Bardley walking behind the tractor Holt was proudly driving down the track from the farm.

‘Good lad!' Henry shouted, as the GIs ran out of the cottage to cheer Holt's success. ‘Good lad.'

‘Tell you what, Henry,' John Bardley said, ‘this chap is
a bloody magician when it comes to engines. I'd have never believed it. We'd be lost without this old girl.'

The sound of the men clapping and cheering brought Jenny, Sadie, Lou and her fiancé, Frank, out of the cottage in time to see Holt stand up and wave from the tractor to acknowledge the applause. Then to show the revival of the old tractor wasn't a fluke, Holt rode it down the lane to the stone bridge. As he headed back towards the cottages, a jeep turned in from the main road and drove towards them. Two MPs stared out, taking in the little group standing on the pavement and the black soldier on the tractor. The jeep drew up, and a fat, pink-faced sergeant climbed out, walked towards the idling machine and stood in front of it with his hand up.

‘You stop that engine now, boy,' he shouted.

The sound of the tractor died and the lane fell silent. In the distance the points in the shunting yards clattered and in the hawthorn hedge behind the cottages a blackbird began to sing.

Holt sat on the machine, his body rigid, his face an expressionless mask.

‘Now get down here quick and tell me what you're doin' on this thing,' the MP said, as if speaking to a naughty child.

‘What's up, lads?' Henry called cheerily. ‘There's no trouble here.'

‘There's no problem here,' John Bardley added. ‘Young Michael has been giving me a hand. There's no trouble.'

‘Begging your pardon, sir,' the MP said, glancing at the two elderly men on the pavement, ‘this here soldier is under arrest.'

‘Arrest?' Wes gasped. ‘Arrest? What for?'

The MP ignored the question. ‘Get down and give me a hand here,' he called to the jeep's driver. ‘Let's hope you boys all got passes, or the rest of you are in trouble as well.'

Con's fingers trembled as he felt in his pocket for his pass.

‘What you arresting them for?' Frank asked. ‘They're here 'cos they've been invited.'

Without looking around to see who had spoken, the MP unbuttoned his holster and growled, ‘Get down, boy, like you was told.'

‘Now just a minute,' John Bardley said, his face flushed with anger, as he stepped into the road and placed his hand on the tractor's wheel. ‘This tractor is mine. Don't you order him to get down off my tractor.'