Chapter 10 #2
Again, there was no answer. Squadron Officer Mulligan waved vaguely to the WAAF at her side, who seemed to be fluent in this type of communication.
She took the form from Bobby, glanced at it, then scribbled something in shorthand.
Bobby tried to make out the squiggles upside down.
Roberta Bancroft. A1, passed for immediate enrolment, it said.
‘You can read this?’
Bobby jumped. Squadron Officer Mulligan had finally deigned to pay attention to her and had clearly caught her studying what was presumably supposed to be confidential.
‘Um, yes,’ Bobby said. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy, it just… caught my eye.’
‘Roberta Bancroft,’ the officer read from her clipboard. ‘Studied at Pitman’s. What shorthand speed?’
Bobby felt even dizzier than she had when she entered. The military seemed to operate without time to waste, or even to draw breath.
‘A hundred and fifty words per minute,’ she said, not without a trace of pride. The NCO making notes looked up to give her an impressed nod.
‘Typing?’
‘Eighty words per minute.’
‘Shorthand typing as well?’
‘Yes, although it’s been a little while since I was called on to do any.’
‘And do you play an instrument?’
Bobby blinked. ‘As in, a musical instrument?’
‘Yes. A cornet or euphonium, ideally.’
Bobby had no idea what the significance of this was, or if it was something all WAAFs were expected to do, but it had been such a bizarre afternoon that she no longer had the capacity to feel surprise.
‘Um, no,’ she said.
‘Pity,’ the officer murmured as she struck through something on her clipboard.
‘They’re desperate for cornets in the WAAF band at Debden.
Still, we can certainly use you in administration.
You can expect to be summoned back here for enrolment within the next week, then it’s likely you’ll be placed on deferred service until we can find a spot for you at a training school – perhaps for several months.
There aren’t nearly enough places to accommodate every new WAAF.
I don’t think there’s a bed left at West Drayton or Wilmslow, and Harrogate’s bursting at the seams.’ She clicked her tongue.
‘This is what happens when you have a government filled with men – no thought for the practicalities. They expect all these girls they’re conscripting to sleep dangling from the rafters like bats, I suppose. ’
Bobby’s head was fair spinning now. Everyone in this place seemed to take it as read that she understood military procedure, and knew what would happen at each step of the call-up process. She was almost embarrassed to admit just how much of a clueless civilian she was.
Mulligan was ignoring her again. Bobby didn’t know if this meant she was dismissed or not, but she wasn’t going without some information.
‘Excuse me?’
Squadron Officer Mulligan looked up. ‘Yes?’
‘The letter I was sent said I could claim for travel and lost earnings.’
‘Oh, yes, yes,’ Mulligan said with a dismissive motion, as if such petty concerns were beneath her. ‘The girl on the door will give you a form.’
Her attention drifted back to her clipboard, but Bobby wasn’t finished.
‘Can I request to be close to home when I’m posted?’ she asked.
‘You can request it,’ the officer said vaguely. ‘Whether you’ll get it is another matter. Priority goes to married women. But we can note it here as a preference.’
‘Yes, please. And, um… I’m sorry, but the letter did say something about a postponement form?’
Mulligan looked up sharply. ‘Postponement form?’
Bobby felt her cheeks heat. The officer’s look was suddenly none too friendly.
‘Yes.’
‘Employer making trouble, is he? If he wants to make a case that your work’s vital to his business, he can write requesting a postponement himself.’ Squadron Officer Mulligan’s gaze drifted to something on her clipboard. ‘Huh. Journalist. Well, I wish him luck with that.’
‘It isn’t him.’ Bobby’s face turned an even deeper shade of crimson. ‘It’s me. I thought I might… that is to say, there was something about exceptional hardship.’
‘You’re unmarried with no children, it says here.’
‘I am, although I’m to be married shortly, but that hasn’t anything to do with it. My fiancé’s in the forces too. It’s my father.’
Mulligan raised an eyebrow. ‘Elderly?’
‘Well, no. He’s fifty-one next month. But he… suffers.’
‘Suffers?’
‘Yes, because of the war – the last war, I mean.’
‘Has he got a handicap that prevents him from working?’
‘No, physically he’s fit. He’s a gamekeeper.’
‘Decent wages?’
‘Enough to live on. But he… he has bad dreams.’
The expression on Mulligan’s face told Bobby this sounded just as feeble to the officer as it had coming out of her mouth. It was so hard to explain to strangers just what she had to fear from leaving her father alone.
‘And he’s a widower,’ Bobby said, realising she was starting to sound desperate. ‘I’m the only one left to take care of him.’
‘There’s no one else who could come in to cook and clean? No woman relation, or a home help he could hire?’
‘There’s Mary – my fiancé’s sister-in-law. But she has her own home to keep, and besides… well, he really ought to have someone living with him.’
‘Right. Because of his “bad dreams”.’
Bobby tried to ignore the sneer in the woman’s voice. ‘Yes. Do you think they’d consider my case?’
‘Oh, no doubt they’d let you off,’ Mulligan said, her tone conveying exactly what she thought of this state of affairs.
‘These committees still occupy that rose-tinted past where it was believed a woman existed to make a home first and foremost. That having a hot dinner on the table and a fire in the grate for some man was more important than work that could save lives. Thank goodness not all of us are living in cloud cuckoo land.’
‘So, um, what should I do then?’ Bobby mumbled.
Squadron Officer Mulligan scribbled something on her clipboard.
‘Speak to the girl on the front desk and ask her for an NS13 – that’s the form you need.
But I hope I don’t need to tell you, young lady, that a lot of people are giving their all to win this war.
We’d be in a fine mess if everyone tried to weasel out of it. ’
‘I know that, but—’
‘We’ve got a lot of others to see. You’re dismissed, Miss Bancroft.’
Mulligan again ignored her. After hesitating a moment, Bobby left the room, humiliation burning her cheeks.
She wasn’t sure what she had been hoping for.
That the officer would see her point, she supposed, and give her blessing to a postponement application.
Anything that might help her feel better about it.
But Mulligan’s disapproval had been palpable, and Bobby was once again left with nothing but her own conscience to guide her.