Sweet Memories of You (Beach View Boarding House) (8 page)

Peggy sighed. There had been so many departures because of this damned war, and there was hardly a person in Cliffehaven who hadn’t been touched by them one way or another. However, if the war was to be won then these sacrifices were necessary, no matter how hard and distressing they might be.

She thought of Anne and her two little girls; of Charlie and Bob; of Doreen’s Evelyn and Joyce – and all the girls who’d found shelter here before they’d left to make their own way in the world. She’d had letters from those girls, which warmed her, for it seemed she hadn’t been forgotten, and it was lovely to know they were all doing well. Even Sally, her first evacuee from London who’d settled in Cliffehaven with marriage to the fire chief, John Hicks, had finally taken her two small children to safety in Somerset.

And then there was her beloved Jim, trying very hard to put a brave face on things in the unbelievable heat and squalor of what she’d guessed to be Bombay. He’d made light of his situation at the transit camp in his short airgraphs, but reading between the lines, Peggy suspected he’d found it tough going after all those weeks at sea.

She didn’t need to read the airgraphs to remember what he’d written, for she knew them by heart. Jim and the other men had arrived in India just before Christmas, and they’d had to march through the city where they’d faced a certain amount of resentment from the locals, who clearly didn’t want them there. The transit camp provided basic accommodation in brick huts, with shutters for windows and beds made out of rope, which he’d soon discovered were a breeding ground for bugs.

There had been little chance of sight-seeing, and as he was proving to be hopeless at speaking Urdu – and the natives didn’t speak English – it was all a bit of a trial. Yet he and his friend Ernie had managed to have a swim in the sea, had discovered the delights of a leather market where they’d bought shoes for less than ten shillings, and eaten like kings back at the camp.

Jim had managed – as usual – to wheedle his way on to light duties, so instead of having to march the four miles to the station on the last day, he’d travelled with the baggage on a truck. The three-day train journey was sparsely described because of the censorship, but it seemed he was very taken with the sights, sounds and smells of India, but not so impressed by the number of beggars and the very strange food on offer.

Peggy smiled as she remembered his description of one dinner in which he’d been given bread, bully beef, a banana, raspberry jam, cheese, pickles and black dates, all rounded off by a bar of toffee. She’d served up some strange concoctions over the past four years, but none quite that odd. At least there seemed to be no shortage of fruit where he was, and she envied him that, for she hadn’t seen a banana for years and the taste of an orange was a dim and distant memory.

Things were far more civilised at their base camp, for they had native servants who did everything for them, from shining shoes to doing their washing. There was a club with a dance floor and billiard room, three very square meals a day all served on posh china and real tablecloths, and their bed linen was of the highest quality. Jim was in seventh heaven, or would have been if it hadn’t been so terribly hot during the day and freezing cold at night. It seemed India was a land of vast contrasts, and it would take him a while to get used to it.

Peggy finished her cigarette and damped down the fire for the night before going into her bedroom off the hall. Jim might be having the time of his life, but while servants waited on him hand and foot she still had to put food on the table – and that involved getting up early to join the inevitable endless queues outside the shops. One never knew what the queue was for, but you joined it in the hope it would be something nice – or at least useful.

Ivy’s worst fears had been realised, for Caroline was as bad as Doris when it came to issuing orders and expecting her to skivvy, and she’d just about had enough of it. Deciding that it was time to either tell them what they could do with their orders, or swallow her pride and ask Peggy if she’d take her in, Ivy slammed the front door behind her and headed for the munitions factory.

It was almost eleven and the night was cold and dark, but she knew the way so well she could have done it in her sleep. Her heavy boots thudded on the pavement as she passed the shops and bomb sites in the High Street. She crossed the humpbacked bridge and paused for a moment to wave to Stan, who was outside his Nissen hut mending a wheel on a luggage trolley, before continuing on up the steep hill which led to the dairy and the ever-growing factory estate. The baggy legs of her dungarees swished against one another at every step – they were several sizes too large for her, and although she’d managed to cobble up the hem, she wasn’t good enough with the needle to actually take them in or shorten the straps on the bib. That was the trouble with being short and skinny – nothing fitted well, and she usually ended up looking like some waif in her big sister’s clothes. But at least the coat she and her friend Mabel had made out of Doris’s discarded picnic blanket helped to keep out the cold, and she was glad of the thick shirt, vest and old cardigan as further protection from the wind that was whipping up from the sea.

Ivy paused to light a cigarette and prepare herself for the long night shift ahead of her. The work was well paid because it was dangerous, and the more bullets she could make, the more money she earned, but she’d had only one day off in the last month, and because she was always tired, there was little time for any real fun.

‘Wotcha, gel. How come you’re so early? It’s not like you, Ivy.’

Ivy grinned at Mabel and then waved at her other East End friends, Dot, Glad and Freda, who were hurrying towards them. ‘I ’ad to get out, didn’t I?’ she said with a grimace. ‘Them two was driving me round the bleedin’ bend.’

The other girls arrived slightly out of breath from their climb up the hill. ‘You’d think we’d got used to that flamin’ hill by now, wouldn’t you?’ panted Freda.

‘Nothing gets easier these days,’ Gladys moaned.

‘I don’t suppose any of you ’ave got room at your billets for a little one, ’ave yer?’ Ivy asked hopefully.

There was a general shaking of heads and murmurs of regret. ‘Never mind, Ivy,’ said Mabel as she gave her a hug. ‘We’ll see you right the minute there’s a spare room. Until then you got us to keep you cheerful.’ She looked at the others. ‘What you say?’

‘Yeah, we canary gels ’ave to stick together,’ said Dot, tying a scarf over her hair which had been streaked yellow by the sulphur she had to handle every day.

‘That’s the spirit, ‘said Freda. ‘Our skins and hair might be turning Chinese, but friendship is what really matters.’ She looked round the group. ‘Right, gels. Are you ready for this?’

They all nodded, stubbed out their fags and headed for the gate, where an armed guard was standing watch. They showed him their identification papers and passes and gave him a bit of banter. He was very young and clearly not used to girls chatting him up, so he quickly turned scarlet, which made it all the more fun. Giggling, they hurried across the vast concrete square to the furthermost point of the estate.

Ivy saw the two-storey factory looming ahead and could already smell the stink of sulphur drifting into the night. She took a last deep breath of fresh air and followed the others into the changing rooms. They took off their coats and checked their pockets for matches, lighters, torches and anything else that might cause an explosion in the highly rarefied atmosphere, then covered their hair with scarves and donned the white coats they all had to wear.

The factory was quite a lively place, for there was a great deal of chatter and someone was always starting a sing-song to help pass the time and lighten the spirits as they did their perilous job. None of them had been given any formal training, just a five-minute demonstration on how to work the heavy machinery, fill shells and bullets, lay trays of anti-tank mine fuses and insert the tubes into the bombs and grenades that would take them. It might have looked easy to the outsider, but it had to be pinpoint accurate to avoid accidents.

They were checked at the door by a supervisor and then they all trooped off to their work stations to be met by the regular thudding of the heavy machinery and the toxic stink of sulphur. The vast areas on both floors were divided into small workshops, each devoted to a particular munition. Ivy waved farewell to Mabel and Glad, who worked on filling landmines, and headed off upstairs to her own area with Freda and Dot, where they’d be filling anti-tank shells.

She set to work with a will, knowing that the harder she worked the more money she could make, and the quicker the night would pass. It was a matter of pride to Ivy that she could send her mum a good dollop of money each week and still manage to save a bit after she’d paid for essentials like new dungarees and shirts and decent underwear. The sum in her post office book was looking very healthy after nine months of this, and her aim was to save enough to be able to rent her own place and tell Doris where she could get off.

The job wasn’t really that simple, for the rockets had to be filled up to a certain level from something resembling a large watering can. The mixture began to set almost immediately on contact with the shell, so the tube that would hold the detonator had to be quickly and accurately inserted. Then the whole thing had to be cleaned and scraped until it was at exactly the right depth inside the shell. It was, in fact, quite heavy work, for when her supply of TNT ran out she had to take her can over to a huge machine that looked like a cement mixer. This was filled with hot TNT, and the pong was so bad it turned her stomach and made her eyes water.

The night went on and Ivy had filled up her can several times. She was tired now and knew she had to be careful, for tiredness made people careless. She discovered that her can was empty yet again and so took it to the machine where Fred Ayling, who was in charge, could pour more of the revolting, stinking stuff into her can.

It weighed a ton and her arms were trembling as she carried it back towards her work bench, but when she tried to pass it from one hand to the other her boot skidded on something left on the floor and she went crashing down.

She cried out as the can’s contents covered her legs and quickly spread around her.

‘It’s all right, ducks, I got you,’ said Harry the foreman, and he picked her up and carried her at a run across the factory floor towards the medical room.

‘Me legs,’ she yelled. ‘They’re burning.’

‘Lucky it weren’t yer face, love,’ he muttered, depositing her on an examination trolley.

Ivy struggled to get her dungarees off, but the doctor appeared and gently pushed her back onto the bed. ‘You’ll have to wait until it’s set,’ he said. ‘Then it will all come off in one piece and we can save your dungarees.’

‘I don’t care about me flamin’ dungarees,’ she snapped. ‘What about me legs?’

‘They’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘You’ll just have to be patient, and then you’ll see. Nurse will see to you now, and once the gel has been removed you can go back to work.’

Ivy sat up and stared at her legs, praying that she wouldn’t be scarred, and that the goo would set quickly so she could get it off. As the clock ticked away the time, the TNT began to set like a pale yellow jelly to mould the shape of her boots, legs and baggy trousers.

She began to pluck at the edges, but the nurse pushed her hand away and, after testing it, managed to get it all off. ‘There,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’

Ivy gingerly rolled up her slightly charred trousers to discover that all the hairs had been burnt away on her legs and the skin was red and tender to the touch. ‘Blimey,’ she breathed.

The nurse grinned. ‘That’ll save having to shave them for a while,’ she said. ‘Now, I’ll put some salve on them to take away the redness, and then you can go back to work.’

‘No chance of a cuppa first, I suppose?’ Ivy asked cheekily. The nurse shook her head and Ivy sighed. ‘Oh well, there was no ’arm in asking, were there?’

She slid off the table once the salve had been applied, and rolled down her trouser legs. With a glance at the clock on the wall she realised she’d wasted almost an hour of valuable earning time, so she hurried back into the factory, picked up a fresh can and got back to work.

The days had sped past and now it was Wednesday: tonight would be the last time Jane would sleep at Beach View. It was a sobering thought, and Peggy knew how much Sarah was dreading their separation. A party was planned for this evening at the Anchor, so that was something to look forward to, but otherwise the day would be like any other, filled with work and responsibilities. As if to emphasise the fact, the sirens went off just as Peggy was about to dole out the morning porridge.

There was a collective groan of frustration, and then everyone went into the routine that was almost second nature by now. As Harvey howled to the heavens and shot out of the back door, Ron carried the hot pot of porridge to the shelter along with bowls and spoons, while Rita helped Cordelia down the steps and along the garden path.

Jane had already left for her last session at the dairy and Fran for the hospital, so it was left to Sarah to grab everyone’s overcoats and ease Daisy out of her high chair. Peggy threw the bread and margarine into the emergency box along with a sharp knife, spare box of matches and the little worn rug, and carried it out into the back garden.

The corrugated-iron Anderson shelter huddled malevolently at the bottom of the garden by the flint wall. It was covered in earth which now sprouted with Ron’s spring vegetable seedlings, and was about as welcoming as a morgue. There were two steps down to the concrete floor from the narrow entrance and Ron had fixed wooden benches along the sides. A sturdy deckchair had been wedged into a corner beneath the arched roof so Cordelia could be comfortable during the long hours they’d had to spend in here, and if she fell asleep, which she often did, she was kept from sliding out of it with two fat pillows.

The overriding smell of the shelter was an earthy damp, and no matter what Ron did, he couldn’t stop water from dripping down the metal walls onto the floor where it lay in dirty puddles. Peggy had done her best to make it cosy with a paraffin heater, a tilley lamp and gas ring, but sitting huddled in there for hour upon hour was not a favourite pastime for any of them.