The September Girls (27 page)

The worse part though, the very worst and most nauseating part of all, was that after breakfast they were expected to carry out all sorts of menial tasks like cleaning the kitchen and the lavatories, which required kneeling down to scrub floors. Had they never heard of a mop? Sybil had never actually used a mop, but thought it must be easier. The officers’ mess also had to be dusted and tidied - the officers had their own little bar where alcohol and light refreshments were provided and there were comfortable armchairs, pictures on the walls and a vase of flowers. The lower ranks had to spend all their leisure time in the billet or go for walks in the uninspiring country lanes that surrounded the camp.

The
most nauseating job was collecting the used sanitary towels from the women’s lavatories and burning them in the furnace. The smell was enough to put you off food for the rest of your life. Was this why she’d joined the Army?

Cara was asleep at the other end of the twenty-four-bed billet. She seemed to have settled in well and made a few friends. Everybody liked her - apart from the drill sergeant who picked on her most unfairly, Sybil had to concede - whereas
she
was openly referred to as a ‘toffee-nosed bitch’.
She
hadn’t made a single friend, didn’t know a single name apart from Cara’s and only spoke to people when she had to. So far as she was concerned, it could stay that way until the war was over.

‘I’ll never like it here,’ she muttered into the rock-hard pillow. ‘Never, never, never.’

 

Cara wasn’t asleep, but crying quietly into her own uncomfortable pillow. She badly wanted to go home. What sort of madness had prompted her to join the forces? It had all seemed like a jolly game and she’d expected to have loads of fun, but had been as miserable as sin since the day she’d arrived three weeks ago.

For one thing, the camp was situated in a flat, desolate area as different from Liverpool as it was possible to imagine, miles away from the shops and picture houses and ordinary human beings. Used to the hustle and bustle of a big, busy city, she found the isolation unnerving and faintly threatening. The September weather was lovely, but they weren’t far from the Lincolnshire coast and it could be chilly some mornings. It affected her more than the others because her skirt was too short and she had to roll up the legs of her long, khaki knickers in case they showed. Longer skirts had been ordered especially for her, but there’d been no indication as to when they would arrive. It was also cold at night: all the camp buildings were made of wood and had been thrown up in a hurry so none were lined. She dreaded to think what it would be like in winter, but fortunately basic training would be over by then and she would be transferred somewhere else, hopefully warmer.

Sergeant Major Fawcett who took them for drill was a bully and the most bad-tempered, ill-humoured person she’d ever met in her life. Perhaps, because she was the tallest, he noticed her more than the other girls and picked on her all the time.

‘Caffrey, you’re out of step,’ he would bawl.

‘Caffrey, don’t you know your left from your right?’ This when virtually every other girl had also turned the wrong way.

‘Caffrey, you great big dollop, don’t slouch. Remember, you’re now a member of His Majesty’s armed forces. Walk tall, girl, be proud.’

Cara had reached the point where drill had become torture and she was finding it hard to stop herself from crying the whole way through. The other girls had noticed she was being picked on - it would have been impossible not to - and were very sympathetic. There was nothing they could do to protect her from the sergeant major’s invective other than call him names, not loud enough for him to hear, but sometimes managing to bring a smile to Cara’s agonized face.

‘If I ever come across that bastard in the dark,’ one of the London girls had muttered the other day, ‘I’ll knee him in the balls so hard that he’ll choke on the bleedin’ things.’

‘Oh, shut up, you revolting, pig-headed creature,’ Peggy Cross had whispered only that morning when Cara had been accused of having two left feet. ‘Don’t let him upset you, love, he’s not worth it.’

Peggy was a schoolteacher, already regretting she’d abandoned a promising career and a very annoyed fiancé for the Army. ‘I thought I was being patriotic, but now it seems more like downright foolishness.’ She was four years older than Cara and they’d become good friends.

At the far end of the dormitory, the London girls were joking among themselves. They were a good laugh, as well as being as tough as old boots, and their hearts were made of pure gold. Sergeant Major Fawcett’s ears would have caught fire had he been able to hear the names they called him - names Cara wasn’t prepared to repeat, not even in her head.

She sniffed dejectedly into the pillow and slipped her hand underneath to where she kept the china lady that Mam had insisted she take with her. Perhaps it’ll bring you luck, darlin’. Well, so far it hadn’t, although Mam would never know. When she wrote home, she claimed everything was the gear and she was having a marvellous time, often having to write the letter again, or even a third time, when she noticed tears had fallen on to the paper, smudging the ink and making a lie of all the cheerful things she had written.

One good thing had happened. A few days ago they’d been set a series of tests to establish the sort of work that would most suit them and she’d done really well, boosting her badly dented confidence no end. The result of this was, when basic training finished, she was being sent to Bedford on a driving course with four other women: Peggy Cross, Fielding, Childs and Sybil Allardyce. Becoming a driver was far preferable to catering, domestic work or working in an office. Peggy was really pleased, but Cara had no idea what Sybil felt about it - it was hard to tell how Sybil felt about anything. She kept herself to herself and no one would have guessed that she and Cara had known each other before. Perhaps, having been at boarding school for so long, she didn’t mind being away from home.

 

‘Wake up, girls,’ Corporal Smithson bellowed in the foghorn voice that sounded bizarre coming from such a dimunitive figure. ‘Wakey, wakey, wakey.’ The light was switched on and she walked the length of the dormitory, kicking the foot of each bed as she passed. The kick would carry through the metal frame like an electric charge and the sleeper would be shocked awake.

‘You’ll be pleased to know, girls,’ the corporal continued gleefully, ‘that according to the weather forecast, the sun has decided to give our little part of the world a miss today, the wind has risen and it’s started to rain. You’ll enjoy drill more than usual this morning.’ She kicked a few more beds. ‘Up you get, Fielding. You too, Atkinson. Why, Caffrey, if you haven’t grown a few more inches during the night! Allardyce! That is
not
an Army issue nightdress. Where d’you think you’re staying - the Savoy? That reminds me, Allardyce, Captain Muir would like to see you in her office at half past eleven. Now, girls, I’m going to stand outside these ’ere showers and if anyone comes out and they’re not sopping wet, they’ll be sent back in and their lovely porridge will go cold.’

‘It’s pitch-dark outside. It’s still the middle of the night.’

‘It’s only pitch-dark, Fielding, because you’ve yet to open your eyes. It’s five to six and the beginning of another scintillating day. Get up and face it with a smile.’

‘Ugh!’ Fielding pretended to be sick. She was a sparky little girl, smaller even than the corporal. She only looked about fourteen and had something to say about everything.

‘You’re a sadist, Corporal,’ Peggy Cross grumbled. ‘You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?’

Corporal Smithson grinned. She was really quite nice and everyone liked her. ‘I’m enjoying it enormously, Cross. Buggering you lot around gives me enormous pleasure.’

The girls stumbled out of their beds, shivering even in their thick pyjamas, grabbed their towels and shuffled into the showers. The water wasn’t exactly cold, but nor was it exactly warm. They emerged, still shivering, and hurriedly began to get dressed. The trouble with a uniform was you couldn’t just throw it on: shirts, collars, ties, jackets and caps all had to be coped with and shoes had to be laced, not to mention the khaki woollen stockings that made the slimmest of legs look like tree trunks.

They left the building, still struggling with buttons, caps askew, hoping they wouldn’t encounter an officer who’d tell them they were a disgrace to the service and order them to go back and not come out until they were properly attired.

In the half-light - in any sort of light - the camp presented a dismal sight, but particularly so this morning in the drizzling rain under a bleak grey sky: a vast concrete parade ground where puddles had already formed, surrounded by single-storey huts; six billets for the girls and more than a hundred men, the officers’ mess, administration buildings, a gymnasium and the canteen towards which the women were eagerly heading, aching for a hot drink and something to eat. It might have been because they were hungry all the time that the food didn’t taste so bad, not even the porridge you could stand your spoon up in, the over-done bacon, the greasy eggs and the sausages that always smelled a bit off.

Breakfast over, the girls were told what tasks awaited them that morning. Cara was detailed to help in the laundry, one of the few jobs she didn’t mind. They returned to their hut and changed into overalls, tying a cotton square turban-style over their hair. Poor Sybil had to burn the sanitary towels for the second or third time and her face was like thunder as they straggled across the parade ground to the various sites.

While the laundry was one of the least unpleasant jobs, especially if all you had to do was iron dozens of shirts, it was also perilous in that men operated the giant gas boilers. They were new recruits like themselves, and some were very nice. Others, though, seemed to regard every female soldier as a slag who would make no objection if her bottom was pinched or her breasts stroked. Cara had been forced to threaten one with an iron when his arms sneaked around her waist and he cupped her breasts in his hands.

‘All right, miss, all right,’ the man had said, laughing as he backed away, making Cara even madder. ‘I didn’t realize you were a lesbian.’

The word meant nothing to Cara, she’d never heard it before.

One had slid his hand between Peggy’s legs and she’d hit him with a wet towel, nearly taking an eye out with the corner. He had screeched in pain and had to visit the First Aid post, returning with a bandage over the damaged eye.

‘I bet you won’t try that again,’ Peggy said coldly, not the least bit sorry.

That morning, laundry detail passed without incident. Cara felt relieved, although it meant that ten o’clock, time for drill, was drawing ever closer. But perhaps the gods were smiling on her today, because when they were back in uniform and had assembled on the parade ground, Sergeant Major Fawcett announced they were going on an exercise. Anything was preferable to drill, she thought.

‘Today, me lovelies, you are going to march to Henslow. A lorry will pick you up at four o’clock and bring you back.’

‘Henslow’s a good twenty miles away, Sarge. We mightn’t have reached there by four,’ Fielding shouted. She seemed to have appointed herself the group’s spokesman.

‘If you miss the lorry, you’ll just have to march back, won’t you? Oh, and don’t forget to wear your greatcoats.’

‘Do we have to, Sarge?’

‘Yes, Fielding,’ the sergeant major said patiently. ‘It’s all part of the exercise. Besides which, it’s raining. We don’t want you catching a chill, do we?’

‘I’d sooner catch a chill than wear my greatcoat. It weighs a ton. Are you coming with us, Sarge?’

‘No, I’m not. You’re going on your ownsomes. There’s a list of things to take with you in the billet.’

‘A list—’ Fielding began, but got no further because Sergeant Major Fawcett’s patience snapped and he bawled, ‘Dismissed!’

 

Back in the billet, they read the list of things to take with a mixture of dismay and anger.

‘A change of uniform!’

‘Billy cans and cutlery!’

‘Spare boots!’

‘A groundsheet, for God’s sake. Why on earth will we need a groundsheet?’

‘
Candles
!’

‘It’s all part of the exercise. It’s a test to see if we come back alive. If we don’t, we’re out of the Army.’

They began to stuff the things into their haversacks, groaning mightily, and groaning even more when they shrugged into the greatcoats that felt as if they were made of lead. With the haversacks on their backs, they could hardly move.

Sergeant Major Fawcett stood by the camp gate and ticked off their names as they left. ‘Where’s Allardyce?’ he barked when there was no sign of Sybil.

‘She has to see Captain Muir at half past eleven,’ Fielding informed him. ‘Lucky old her.’

‘There’s no need for that attitude. You’re about to have a nice day out and I bet Allardyce is kicking herself for missing it.’

‘Oh, yeah!’

They marched for about half a mile along a dreary country lane, by which time shoes had begun to pinch and shoulders to ache. Rain dripped off their caps and trickled down their necks, the temperature had warmed up considerably and they were melting in the heavy coats. They were seriously considering staging a mutiny and risking being expelled or cashiered or whatever it was called when you were chucked out of the Army, when they heard something approaching from behind and turned to see a single-decker bus trundling towards them, its destination Henslow. They stood in the middle of the lane, leaving the driver with no choice but to mow them down or stop his bus.

He stopped and they piled inside and sat among the bemused passengers, mainly women with shopping bags.

‘We’re just showing initiative, that’s all,’ said Peggy Cross. ‘That’s what you’re supposed to do in the face of the enemy: show initiative. Has everyone got enough money for the fare?’