Where the Heart Is. Annie Groves

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ herself. She was a Waaf now, and her own person, even if sometimes being her own person felt so very lonely.

      As the lorry lumbered towards their destination Lou smothered a yawn. It had been a long day, so long in fact that she was actually looking forward to going to bed, even though that meant sleeping in a hard military bed with its three-part-biscuit mattress and itchy blankets, in a hut filled with thirty girls. It was amazing what you could get used to.

      ‘I hope they give us something to eat before we bed down,’ Betty said.

      ‘We’ll be lucky if they do,’

      Ellen replied. ‘It’s gone nine o’clock now. I reckon it will be a quick admission, and then we’ll be marching into our billets. And to think I could have trained as a postal clerk.’

      ‘Looks like we’re here, girls,’ Lou told them as she saw the start of the camp’s perimeter fence from the open back of the transport, the wire shining in the moonlight.

      The lorry slowed down by the guardhouse and the barrier was raised to allow them through. Another five minutes and they were clambering out in front of a brick building, easing cramped cold limbs and shouldering their kitbags.

      ‘Watch out,’ Betty warned as the door opened, and a sergeant and another NCO stepped out, the latter holding a clipboard.

      One by one she called out their names and numbers, then told them, ‘You’re in Hut Number Thirty. Sergeant James here will escort you to the mess for your supper, but you’ll have to look sharp. It’s lights out at ten p.m. I don’t know what you’ve been taught or told wherever it is you’ve come from, but here at Halton we pride ourselves on doing things by the book.

      ‘You’ll be woken up at six by the PA system. No one gets to go for breakfast until the corporal in charge of their hut has done a proper inspection of beds and uniforms. After breakfast, everyone musters for a proper parade. There’s no slouching around and turning up at classes individually here. We’ve got a reputation to maintain and it’s the job of us NCOs to make sure that it is maintained. You have been warned.

      ‘Now tomorrow morning, since it’s your first day, after parade you’ll all present yourselves to the MO for medicals and vaccinations.

      ‘One day a week here we all have to wear our gas masks. Anyone found not doing so will be put on a charge. All right, Sergeant, you can take over now.’

      Obeying the sergeant’s command to fall in, Lou decided tiredly that she was relieved that Sasha wasn’t here to tell her that she’d have been much better off staying at the telephone exchange, because the way she was feeling right now she might just be inclined to agree with her.

      Tucked up cosily in bed with her new husband in the pretty bedroom with its dormer window and cream-painted walls, on which she had carefully stencilled pink roses to match their pink eiderdown, Grace gave a deep sigh.

      The wonderful intimacy of being married still made her colour up a little self-consciously, and she felt excited inside now Seb came into their bedroom from the bathroom, in his blue and white striped pyjamas, freshly shaved, smelling of soap.

      ‘What, not fed up of being married to me already, are you?’ Seb demanded in mock outrage.

      ‘No, of course not. I love being married to you,’ Grace assured him fervently.

      ‘Do you now? Well, I’m very glad to hear that because I certainly love being married to you,’ said Seb, before drawing her into his arms so that he could kiss her.

      Naturally it was several minutes before Grace could speak again, but when she could she told him, ‘I was just thinking about Mum, Seb. She’s ever so upset about Luke and Katie. She thought they were perfect for one another – we all did – and now Luke’s gone and broken off their engagement.

      ‘Perhaps it’s for the best.’

      ‘How can you say that?’ Seb had released her now and Grace shivered a little, despite the warmth of the flannelette nightdress she was wearing, the neck tied with pretty pink ribbon. ‘Mum is heartbroken, and Katie will be too. She loves Luke so much. Anyway, I thought you liked Katie.’

      ‘I do,’ Seb assured her, reaching up to pull the cord to switch off the two wall lights either side of the bed.

      ‘Then—’

      ‘I know that Luke is your brother and of course you love him. He’s a fine soldier, and a good brother, but it seemed to me that whilst he loved Katie, he hurt her quite a lot with his lack of trust. You can’t build a good marriage without trust, or at least not in my book. Perhaps without this war Luke and Katie could have married and not had any problems, but war changes things, it sharpens and intensifies so much.’

      Grace sighed again, as she snuggled into Seb’s waiting arms and put her head on his shoulder. They were so lucky. They had one another, and they had this cosy cottage where she was so happy making a home for them both. She knew that Seb was right, but she still couldn’t help feeling sad. They had all liked Katie so very much.

      ‘I’m so lucky to have found you,’ she told her husband, ‘but I do feel guilty about not being in Liverpool to help Mum. She’s got so much to worry about now, and so has Auntie Francine. Mum told me that uncle Brandon is very poorly and going to die soon. They’ve been married such a short time.’

      ‘We’ll go and see your mum the minute we both get leave, if that will help put your mind at rest.’

      ‘Yes, it will.’

      ‘Good. Now it seems to me that it’s an awfully long time since I last kissed my wife.’

      ‘Oh, Seb.’ Grace gave a small giggle and then said nothing at all as her husband’s arms wrapped lovingly around her.

TWO

      ‘It can’t be morning already,’ Lou heard Betty complain as the public address system announced that it was six o’clock and time for them to get up.

      Inside the cold darkness of the hut, all the young women were waking up, and going through the automatic actions of pulling on clothes and making beds, ignoring slowly numbing fingers as they hurried against the clock.

      In common with accommodation huts at bases all over the country, theirs housed thirty girls with a small separate ‘room’ for their corporal. Two stoves supposedly kept the place warm although only those with beds close to them actually felt their benefit.

      At six thirty on the dot their corporal appeared. The girls stood stiffly at the end of their beds whilst she walked up and down the line, inspecting them.

      Lou quailed a little inwardly when the corporal looked at the buttons on her jacket. Lou had learned whilst square bashing that it was a matter of pride to look as though one belonged and wasn’t ‘new’, and so she had paid a small amount to swap her buttons for those on the uniform of another girl who was leaving the WAAF on medical grounds. She felt immensely proud of her well-polished buttons but now she wondered if swapping them was going to get her into trouble.

      To her relief, Ruby, who was standing next to her, suddenly gasped and put her hand on her tummy as it rumbled loudly, distracting their corporal’s attention, although Lou СКАЧАТЬ