Chapter 31
The next day, Bobby discovered that the first thing the WAAF expected its recruits to learn was how to queue.
They were awakened by the sound of an efficient bugle at six a.m. This was the same time as Bobby would have risen at home, giving her an hour to pump the water and do her chores before she needed to start getting ready for work, but after a night containing no more than two hours’ sleep, she groaned just as much as the other women when she dragged herself out of bed.
As they queued outside the ablutions block, shivering and jiggling on the spot to get warm, Bobby felt how foolish she had been to believe that life in the cow house would have prepared her for the military.
The outhouse they had shared with Moorside may have been cold, the water often frozen in the lavatory bowl in winter, but at least she had never had to wait long to use it.
Now not only her arms but her whole body ached after a night struggling to get comfortable on the thin mattresses, and by the time her turn came to wash, her hands were almost too numb to turn on the tap.
They were given just an hour to wash, dress, use the latrines, tidy their bunks and make themselves presentable before marching to the cookhouse for breakfast. An NCO who had been placed in charge of their hut strode up and down barking instructions as, bleary-eyed, the new WAAFs prepared for their first day.
‘Hair is not to touch collars at any time,’ Corporal Bennett told them. ‘Minimal rouge, please, ladies. A WAAF is feminine but never garish. Look sharp or we’ll be late for breakfast.’
After everyone had dressed, the corporal gave them a lecture on the correct way to ‘stack’ their beds.
In the RAF, Bobby learned, beds were stacked rather than made.
The three mattresses, known as biscuits, had to be piled on top of each other with utmost precision, then the blankets and sheets arranged alternately with the third blanket folded lengthways and wrapped around.
Untidy stacks, they were told, would be pulled apart and the culprit forced to remake them until the inspecting NCO was satisfied.
‘Obviously it would be impossible to win a war with an untidy stack and hair touching our collars,’ Mike whispered as they stood by their bunks watching this demonstration, and Bobby smothered a smile.
Once beds had been stacked and inspected, the women were made to package up their civilian clothes to be sent back to their families.
Bobby stood in her new uniform, with its itchy lisle stockings and the long woollen ‘blackout’ underwear, and felt rather helpless as she watched the brown paper parcel containing her clothes be taken away.
In parting with it, she felt as though she was saying goodbye to the last remnant of her life in Silverdale.
The next queue was for breakfast, the WAAFs lining up two by two for a plate of bacon and eggs. While the queueing was tedious, the portions were relatively unstinting, and Bobby cheered up slightly as she tucked in.
By the time the day was nearly over, she had spent almost all of it in some sort of queue.
They had queued for photographs, queued for pay books, queued for button polish, queued for tape and marking ink to sew into their uniforms, and finally queued to find out if they had been accepted for their preferred trade.
‘Rank and number?’ an RAF flight sergeant demanded when she reached the front of this last queue.
‘ACW/2, 2172954,’ Bobby told him.
The new service number felt strange as it rolled off her tongue. She was no longer Bobby Bancroft but ACW/2, 2172954. The impersonal – inhuman – sound of it sent a shiver down her spine.
Her father still remembered his army service number from the last war.
He never forgot that, although in the darkest times he might forget the names of his daughters, what day it was or even what year.
Sometimes she heard him mumble it in his sleep.
Bobby wondered if, when she was a wizened old woman, this new and unfamiliar identity label would feel as much a part of her as her own name.
‘2172954,’ the man said, looking at his list. ‘You’re to be trained as a clerk, general duties.’ He handed her a pamphlet. ‘Impressive test scores, I see. Well done.’
Bobby frowned. ‘General duties? You mean administration?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But I ticked special duties on my test. Er, sir,’ she added, grimacing at the oversight. ‘Sorry, ought I to have saluted?’
The flight sergeant smiled kindly from under his handlebar moustache. ‘No, I’m not an officer. NCOs aren’t saluted, and you shouldn’t call us sir. Better get that right from day one or you’ll have someone barking at you.’
‘Sorry. I thought since you outranked me…’
‘It’s the King’s commission you’re saluting. Strictly for officers only. Don’t worry, love, you’ll soon get the hang of it all.’
‘Right,’ Bobby said. ‘Um, do you know why I wasn’t accepted for the trade I ticked, si— Flight Sergeant? Weren’t my test scores good enough?’
‘I’d be surprised if they weren’t. I suppose one of the big bugs must have decided you were better suited to general duties.’
‘Oh. Thank you.’
Bobby left, her spirits sinking.
She wasn’t sure why plotter had suddenly become her ambition.
She had never heard of it until a few days ago, but the way Archie had described it had made it sound sort of important.
And if his friend was anything to go by, it could lead to bigger things – a commission, and perhaps even overseas posting.
But it wasn’t to be. She was to be no more than a secretary in uniform after all, despite her apparently impressive test scores.
She trudged back to Hut 17 and threw herself down on her bunk. Everyone was now off duty, and Mike, Carol and Dilys were on their bunks awaiting the dinner hour. Mike was reading a magazine, Dilys was filing her nails and Carol was studying a leaflet.
‘What’s up with her?’ Dilys asked Carol, jerking a thumb in Bobby’s direction.
‘What is up with you?’ Carol asked.
‘Nothing really,’ Bobby said. ‘I didn’t get the trade I wanted, that’s all. I was hoping for special duties clerk but I’ve been given general duties instead. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Stewpot did tell me the WAAF only wanted me for my shorthand typing.’
‘That’s not bad though,’ Mike said, putting down her magazine. ‘Better money than batwomen and cooks, once you’ve qualified. What is it, fifteen bob a week?’
Bobby glanced at the pamphlet she’d be given, which was headed Notes for the Information of Candidates. Clerk came under Group IV, which for an Aircraftwoman Second Class meant daily pay of two shillings tuppence plus fourpence a day war pay. She did a quick mental calculation.
‘Seventeen and six,’ she told Mike. ‘I was on twenty as a civilian though.’
‘Yes, but now you’ve no clothes or rations to pay for. Besides, a swotty sort like you will soon rise up the ranks. You’ll be an NCO in no time, Bobsy.’
‘It isn’t really about the money,’ Bobby said. ‘I just thought there might be more important work for me to do in the WAAF than typing.’
‘Well, you don’t have to stick with it. You can apply for different training, once you’ve bedded in a bit.’
‘Can I? I thought once they gave you something, you were lumbered with it.’
Mike shrugged. ‘Only if you let yourself be lumbered with it.’
Bobby’s gaze fell once again on the pamphlet, and its tables of trades and wages.
She would be able to send very little of her wage home to help her family for as long as she remained a lowly erk, as the aircraftwomen were known.
But if she acquitted herself well, perhaps Mike was right – maybe there could be the chevrons of a non-commissioned officer in her future.
As a corporal, she would be earning twenty-eight shillings a week – eight bob more than Reg paid her.
That would make a big difference to her family, especially after the baby arrived.
Perhaps she might even gain a commission, if she worked hard.
The thought cheered her a little, and she glanced up to smile at the other women.
‘Did you three get what you wanted?’
Bobby watched as Carol passed the leaflet she had been studying to Dilys in the bunk below, somewhat surreptitiously. Dilys looked at it and let out a little giggle.
Carol turned to grin at Bobby. ‘Oh, I hit the jackpot. Waitress. I start tomorrow lunchtime in the officers’ mess.’
‘Is that the jackpot?’ Bobby asked. Waitressing didn’t sound like it would be one of the higher-paid trades.
‘In the RAF officers’ mess – you know, where the men eat. Must be because I told our beloved Stewpot I worked in a hotel before joining up. I’m happy enough with the lower wages if it’ll get me close to the officers.’
‘I’m to be trained as an aircrafthand,’ Dilys said, wrinkling her nose. ‘That means I’ll be in trousers and shapeless battledress tunics all day long. I’ll look an utter fright. We have to change into service dress for socials though.’
‘What about you?’ Bobby asked Mike.
‘Wireless operator,’ Mike said, sounding proud. ‘It’s what I wanted. I’ve been revising Morse for yonks so I’d be able to ace the tests. David will be thrilled.’
‘Why did you want to do that?’
‘The wireless operators transmit messages between planes and their base. They talk the aircraft down when they get into trouble. David told me an operator saved his life once. I knew then that when I joined up, that was what I wanted to do.’
Carol laughed. ‘I never realised you were so noble, Mike. You sound like Bobsy.’
Mike shrugged. ‘I can’t have depths?’
‘I’d have liked to do something like that,’ Bobby said with a sigh. ‘I just hope I don’t spend the rest of the war filing.’ She glanced over to the bunk opposite as Dilys once again sniggered at the leaflet Carol had given her. ‘What’s that thing you’re passing around?’
‘Take a look,’ Carol said, grinning. ‘Dilys, let her see.’