Chapter 30
‘That sour-faced old hag!’ Mike ranted later, standing in front of the mirror in the boned corset, coarse cotton bra and long wool knickers that had been issued during kitting out earlier.
‘What’s the idea, locking us up like convent girls?
Just because she hasn’t had a man since bustles were in fashion. ’
Bobby had found herself sharing the bunk beds closest to the door with Mike, while Carol and the young Welsh girl, Dilys – the one who had called Bobby a prig – had the neighbouring pair.
Bobby was sitting on her bottom bunk, writing a letter to Charlie and listening to the rain hammering on the tin roof while the other women ranted about their new commandant.
‘That’s not what I heard,’ Carol told Mike, in a confidential tone.
‘I was talking to Mavis, one of the NCOs, over our sausage and mash tonight. She told me on the quiet that Stewpot Mulligan was forced to transfer here from Harrogate after the RAF officer she was engaged to ditched her for someone else.’
Mike laughed. ‘No wonder she hates men then. I don’t blame him either, poor beggar.’
Dilys wrinkled her nose. ‘Her engaged? She must be at least forty.’
Carol was shuffling into her new skirt. They’d been issued with a full service uniform each: shirt, tie, tunic, skirt and cap, although greatcoats and spare uniforms had yet to arrive.
Everything here seemed to be in a state of half-readiness as the camp had hastily prepared to receive its new female recruits.
Carol fastened on her jacket and tightened the belt, then went to stand by Mike so she could look in the mirror on their chest of drawers.
‘What did they bother sizing us for if they were going to give us any old rags?’ Carol grumbled. ‘This skirt is at least two sizes too big. Ugh, and you’re right, Mike: I’ve got a backside like the front of a bus.’
‘Your sister wasn’t wrong about these blackout knickers either,’ Mike said. ‘Talk about passion-killers. I’m not wearing them no matter how cold I get, otherwise I’ll never get a man. I fully intend to start having some fun as soon as possible, in spite of old Stewpot’s diktats.’
‘How do you manage it?’ Dilys asked, her voice tinged with admiration. ‘It’s all right for your husband. He isn’t going to have any babies.’
‘Oh, I know all the ways,’ Mike said breezily. ‘A couple of kids tugging at my skirts is the last thing either of us would want, whether they were David’s or someone else’s. We’ve got plans for after the war. We’re going travelling, see the world.’
‘What ways are there?’
‘French letters, for one, of course, although some men can be funny about using them. But there are plenty of other tricks. Stick with me, girls, and I’ll teach you all about it.’
‘Richie would wallop me into next week if he thought I knew what French letters were,’ Dilys observed. ‘He’s my lad back in Swansea. He thinks it’s serious, but I don’t. I joined up to find someone better.’
Carol picked up Bobby’s photograph of Charlie in uniform, which she had placed on the chest of drawers to face her bunk. ‘This your feller?’
‘That’s right,’ Bobby said vaguely. She was trying to focus on her letter. Her arms were aching from the injections she had been given, and after already composing a brief letter to Lilian, every word she formed felt painful.
Carol let out a whistle. ‘Nice. How did you manage that?’
‘Oh, just by being my charming self,’ Bobby said with a smile, forcing herself to sound jovial.
She knew that when the bugle sounded lights out, the homesickness would really start to bite.
For now, she was just trying not to cry, or to alienate the women she had found herself with any further by seeming standoffish.
She tried to shut out the buzz of conversation and concentrate on her letter.
You mustn’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while.
The strict WAAF commandant has imposed a sort of purdah, and after this letter I’m not to communicate with the outside world until a fortnight is up.
I’ll still be thinking about you, and writing down everything about my new life here to send when I’m allowed.
Please write the same as always, so I’ll have a nice pile of letters to open when I’m free again.
In the meantime, I’ll speak as soon as possible to Squadron Officer Mulligan – that’s our WAAF senior officer – about permission to marry, and whether I can have home leave for the 2nd so we can set the date officially.
There’s a telephone in the recreation hut here, so we shall be able to talk sometimes too once the ban is up. It feels like so long since we last spoke. Even this morning feels like half a lifetime ago after all that’s happened today.
It’s been some time since I had a letter from you, darling. Have you been writing as usual? I know they’re probably only held up in the post, but I can’t help worrying. Do write as soon as you can, or send a wire if you’re worried it won’t get through, and let me know everything is all right.
Bobby paused to dash away a tear. She couldn’t stop herself from dwelling on what Mike had said earlier.
She had often worried about her and Charlie drifting apart while they were far away from each other, but surely he couldn’t stop loving her, just like that?
He had been so affectionate in his last few letters, and eager for their wedding.
And yet flying ops must be such a frightening, isolating experience.
The sort that caused you to crave warm arms to hold you, and make you feel safe and alive.
Men in the full virility of youth naturally desired the company of women, and when they faced death on a daily basis, the urge to be with someone physically was probably stronger than ever.
Charlie had the same urges and desires as any other man his age.
He had never struggled to attract the attention of women even as a civilian, and such was the glamour surrounding pilots that he could no doubt take his choice when it came to female company.
Could he… could he have met someone else?
As she fumbled once again for her hanky, Bobby became aware that the young Welsh girl, Dilys, had approached the bunk and was reading her letter over her shoulder. She grinned when Bobby looked up.
‘Trouble in paradise?’ she asked, arching an eyebrow.
‘Just some missing letters,’ Bobby murmured, looking away, but the girl had already spotted the tear on her cheek.
‘You sure blub a lot,’ she observed. ‘You made it with this fiancé yet, or are you saving yourself? You look the type.’
Bobby blushed deeply. ‘That’s… none of your business.’
Dilys laughed, none too pleasantly. ‘Oh my word, you are! No wonder he’s stopped writing to you.’
Mike glanced over. ‘Leave her alone, Dilys. Aren’t you going to visit Aunty? It’ll be lights out in half an hour and you haven’t washed.’
Aunty, Bobby had learned, was the euphemistic name for the ablutions block, where the wash facilities and two latrines were located.
‘I’m not going out in this rain,’ Dilys said, throwing herself down on her bunk. ‘What does it matter if I smell when we’re to be deprived of masculine company? Bugger it, I say.’
Bobby stood up. ‘I need to go. I haven’t washed yet either.’
She threw on her coat and headed for the door, grateful for the opportunity to be by herself for a short time. At least in the rain, she could cry all she liked.
However, as soon as she got outside she felt a hand on her shoulder. Mike had put on her coat too and followed her out.
‘Hey, are you all right?’ Mike asked. ‘You sounded choked up just now.’
Bobby forced back fresh tears. ‘I suppose I’m just homesick. I know it’s pathetic when I’m practically down the road from where I lived before, but I feel like I’ve gone a thousand miles.’
‘I hope I didn’t upset you before, when I said that everyone in the Air Force had someone on the side. I didn’t realise you and your fiancé were having problems.’
‘We’re not having problems,’ Bobby muttered. ‘Some of his letters have gone astray, that’s all. We’re to be married on the 2nd of May, if we can both get leave.’
‘I’m sure if you have faith in him, he must be one of the good ones,’ Mike said kindly. ‘Sorry for talking out of turn. I never do know when to keep quiet. We ought to be friends, now we’re bunkies.’
Bobby summoned a smile. ‘I’d like that.’
‘And don’t mind that kid Dilys. She’s just showing off to prove she’s one of the big girls. It can be dog eat dog in places like this.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Trust me, I went to boarding school.’
Bobby pushed damp hair out of her face. ‘Have you been in the forces before? You seem to know a lot about it.’
‘In a way. My father was an officer in the Army. I spent my early childhood being dragged from camp to camp. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’
‘Thank you.’
Bobby had been unsure what to make of Mike, whose view of the world seemed so very different to her own, but she was craving a kind word more than anything right now. She hadn’t realised how much she needed someone who would be a friend to her, however little they might have in common.
Mike shivered as she pulled her coat around her. ‘Bloody freezing in this rain. You ought to hurry, if you don’t want to start your first full day on charge. Not long until lights out.’
Bobby didn’t sleep much. She lay awake on her hard, uncomfortable bed under hairy Air Force blankets, feeling unbearably wretched as she listened to the snores of her bunkmate and the heavy rain rattling the tin roof.
Although she had been fighting back tears most of the day, now she was at liberty to indulge in the catharsis of a good cry, she found they wouldn’t come.
Her arms and shoulders ached like hell, she felt hot and then cold and then hot again, and she had a sick, empty feeling in her stomach.
The arm ache and fever flushes she put down to her vaccinations, but the empty feeling was all her own.
Everything was so much harder than she had thought it would be.
Yes, she had been worried about leaving, but she had, after all, left home once before.
It wasn’t so very long ago that she had uprooted herself from everything she knew to begin a new life in the Dales, and while that, too, had been daunting at the time, she had soon come to see the place as her home.
Bobby had assumed she would adjust to this new military life as well as she had eventually done to the world of Silverdale.
Now she was here, however, she was beginning to doubt whether that could ever happen.
She had never been in this sort of environment before.
It felt strange to be so very… so very insignificant, just one face among many, stripped of your name and labelled with a number.
Everyone forced to eat the same, dress the same, even walk the same, as if they were a single person copied over and over.
School had had its challenges but it hadn’t been like this.
She could hear sniffs coming from other bunks, muffled by pillows. Bobby suspected these had more to do with homesickness than cold. Many of the girls here were young, probably experiencing their first time away from home. She was sure she even heard some sniffles from Dilys’s bunk.
It reminded her that young men and women were being plunged into a life like this every day, with no choice but to cope.
Lilian had done it, and Charlie, and her brothers.
So why did it feel so difficult for her?
Bobby had always believed she was a resilient person, yet now she wondered if she could even get through her six-week basic training without breaking down.
It wasn’t that she disliked the people she had found herself among.
As hedonistic and worldly as Mike seemed, she had been kind earlier when Bobby had needed kindness, and offered her friendship.
For all her abruptness, Carol was bouncy and good-natured, and seemed to have acquired numerous friends already.
Perhaps even Dilys would improve on acquaintance – as Mike had said, she wasn’t much more than a kid.
But it felt like the other women shared a camaraderie from which she was excluded, and she couldn’t help feeling like an alien amongst them.
She didn’t want to be labelled a prig or a stick-in-the-mud, but nor did she want to be dragged into that heady world of dances, men, drinking and flirtations around which the lives of her new acquaintances seemed to revolve.
Bobby had found Mulligan cold and intimidating when she had met her at the recruiting centre, yet the final part of her welcome speech today had struck a chord.
The officer’s face had been filled with a steely pride when she had talked about standing up to those people who sneered at women in uniform, and the men who would try to persuade them they were less than they were.
Bobby had stood a little taller when Mulligan had talked about taking pride in their contribution to the war effort, although the others may have rolled their eyes, and she had determined she would wear her WAAF uniform with distinction.
But when she had tried on that uniform earlier and looked at herself in the mirror – this pale, frightened little thing blinking under her peaked cap, ill at ease in a set of clothes that seemed to have been made for someone else – Bobby wondered if she could ever feel like she belonged here.