If You Were the Only Girl, page 41
‘I think it’s all eyewash anyway,’ Jenny said. ‘We are praying that we beat the Germans and they are sitting in their churches praying to beat us. If I was God, I would get really confused.’
‘Good job you’re not then,’ said Babs.
‘Fine chance of it, anyway,’ Lucy said. ‘For if ever the position became vacant you wouldn’t even make the short list.’
‘Good,’ Jenny said. ‘I want nothing to do with any of it. I will just battle away on my own without any appeals to a higher authority.’
‘And you could do worse,’ Lucy said.
The sporadic small raids ceased completely, though of course the Birmingham people weren’t aware of that. They’d had lulls before. Eventually, though, they began to believe that the bombing raids were over. People were still living in temporary accommodation – church halls, school halls or even warehouses – and they’d had to bully the city to provide even that much.
Food was another problem, and although the WVS did their best they could only do so much. Back in December, destitute people, supported by the Lord Mayor, the Labour Party and the Co-operative Society, had begun demanding mobile canteens, clothes, blankets and specific organisation to deal with the homeless, so now at least the homeless could buy soup and a chunk of bread for three pence, and, between the hours of twelve and two, a two-course meal could be bought for eight pence.
‘But that is only the tip of the iceberg,’ Lucy said. ‘I mean, people who have lost everything need more than a bowl of soup.’
‘Yes,’ Jenny said, ‘but it takes time, doesn’t it?’
‘There are so many homeless, it will take years for them all to be dealt with adequately.’
It was a depressing thought, yet life went on and people learnt to cope with deprivation. Often through the most trying conditions, children went to school and mothers and fathers went to work.
To add to people’s problems, clothes were now rationed based on a points system. Everybody had sixty points for the year, which was not a lot when a coat was 14 points, a dress 7 to 11, according to the material used, a cardigan or jumper 5, and for a pair of stockings 2 points. Every article of clothing, or even other textiles like bedding, had to be exchanged for the relevant points as well as the money.
Although they acknowledged that it must be very hard for families, the girls took clothes rationing on as a challenge. They had already been pooling their clothes to ring the changes, and as the government urged everyone to ‘Make Do and Mend’, and to be a squander bug was regarded as the worst thing in the world, the girls had become very adept with a needle. It was heartening to see how a new look could be achieved with the addition of a collar, or false hem, or lace around the sleeves of a jaded blouse, or the odd bow here or a set of beads there.
The point was they had to have things to make do and mend with. Gwen had been useful there because of the jumble sales run by the WVS. As soon as the raids ceased and the hospital was more or less running as it had been, Lucy saw Gwen at least once a month, when she hadn’t had to be back at the hospital till noon the following day, staying the night with her, and sometimes seeing her too on the alternate Sunday when she was off duty from 2 p.m. Gwen would often have some old and dated little gem waiting for her that they could adapt to wear, or take apart to revamp. Gwen was glad to help, for she knew how hard the nurses worked and what little free time they had, and she felt gratified that Lucy used so much of it to spend with her.
As Christmas approached there was even less in the shops to buy to put in a child’s stocking and little in the way of festive food either. In the hospital, wards were just beginning to be decorated. Garlands and streamers and papers lanterns were brought out of storage, and the Christmas trees installed, ready to be festooned with tinsel and shining glass baubles, and with a star on the very top. In the children’s ward, nearer to Christmas Day, tantalising parcels would surround their tree. Most of these would be gifts from America, but some were from local well-wishers who wanted to make Christmas in hospital as pleasant as possible for children who had often already suffered enough.
Then, on 7 December, the Japanese attacked the US naval fleet in Pearl Harbor, and invaded Malaya and the Philippines, pulling America into the war. Some said it was about bloody time, but Lucy viewed it with dismay because whatever way you looked at it, it was an escalation of hostilities, and that filled her with despondency.
TWENTY-NINE
The news of the Japanese attack shocked many people and the speed of the Japanese advance through Malaya, as Christmas approached, stunned the world. Lucy was spending Christmas Day with Gwen, though she had to be back at the hospital the following morning, and, as they ate dinner together that day, Lucy expressed concern about the Japanese.
Gwen told her not to worry too much. ‘They will be soundly repulsed when they reach the borders of Singapore. We have a heavy army presence there and Singapore itself is said to be impregnable.’
‘You know, Gwen, I’ve already been told two things were impregnable in this war and they turned out not to be,’ Lucy said. ‘But I really do hope you are right about Singapore.’
‘And so do I,’ Gwen said gravely.
‘Oh, let’s not talk about it any more,’ Lucy said suddenly. ‘I know the news is bad, but let’s forget it just for today.’
‘You’re right,’ Gwen said. ‘If we talk about it from now till the cows come home it will make no difference and only make us feel gloomy.’
‘And we don’t want that, today of all days,’ Lucy said. ‘After all, it is Christmas.’
‘It’s supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men,’ Gwen said with a smile. ‘Funny that I seem unable to extend that to the Germans or the Japanese.’
‘Not funny at all,’ Lucy said. ‘Sensible, in fact. I think there are limits, even to this “goodwill to all men” caper.’
As New Year unfolded, Lucy was hoping and praying that Gwen was right and that for once impregnable meant impregnable. She tracked the Japanese advance with the help of a map from the Evening Mail, which she pinned to the door of her room, for Babs and Jenny were as interested as she was.
Each day the news was worse. The Japanese were taking no prisoners, and in their wake, as they pushed their relentless way forward, she read with horror about the murdered British soldiers, the mutilated bodies of Malayans who may have tried to help them, and the Australian soldiers chained and burnt to death.
What was the army in Singapore against such a savage force? Certainly not impregnable, though they fought hard and valiantly, spurred on by Churchill, who stated before the final assault, ‘There must be no thought of sparing the troops or the population; commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honour of the British Empire and the British Army is at stake.’
However, despite Churchill, the final battle for Singapore was brutal and very, very bloody. So many men were killed that the army had no choice but to surrender to the Japanese on 15 February. Once established, they proceeded to torture and then slaughter any people of Chinese origin, and took 100,000 Allied soldiers prisoner. Churchill announced that he considered it one of worst defeats of the British Army.
One day in late February, Lucy had just come off duty and noticed that either Babs or Jenny had picked up the post and put it on the little table by the door, but, before she’d had a chance to look at the envelopes, Sister Magee came to tell her that a Mrs Gilbert was in reception and would like a word.
Lucy flew down the stairs. ‘Gwen, what is it?’
Gwen said, ‘Have you had a letter from Chris today?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lucy said. ‘I have post certainly, but I don’t know if there’s a letter from Chris.’
‘Will you look?’
‘Why?’ Lucy said. ‘What is this?’
‘Please?’ Gwen said.
At the look in her eyes, Lucy said, ‘Come with me then.’ She glanced across at Sister Magee. ‘That’s all right, isn’t it?’
The nurse nodded grimly, for though women weren’t banned from the nurses’ home visitors weren’t something she encouraged.
‘But you share with others?’ Gwen protested as she reluctantly followed Lucy up the stairs.
‘No one’s here,’ Lucy said as she opened the door. ‘They are either having something to eat or are in the common room. We will have the place to ourselves for a while at least.’
She rummaged around on the hall table as she spoke and picked an envelope out. ‘Yes, here’s one from Chris,’ she said, and she plonked herself on her bed, pulling Gwen down beside her. ‘Come on, what’s all this about? I won’t wait a minute longer.’
‘I think Chris is overseas,’ Gwen said.
‘What makes you say that?’ Lucy said, ripping open her envelope as she spoke. ‘And if he was bound for foreign climes, wouldn’t he have been given embark-ation leave?’
‘Don’t know about embarkation leave,’ Gwen said. ‘Maybe it’s different for the medical teams, and I’m not sure he is overseas. I wanted to see if he said anything to you.’
Lucy scanned the letter and gave a sudden gasp. ‘What did he say to you that you thought odd?’ she said.
‘Just this,’ Gwen said reading from her letter: ‘“Sea very choppy today. But then I was never a good sailor.”’
Lucy nodded. Mine says, “On the move, but at least this time I might get a good tan.” Put together, I would say that he’s abroad and somewhere very hot, wouldn’t you?’ Lucy said. ‘And he is trying to tell us.’
‘Yes,’ said Gwen. ‘I just hope that he isn’t mixed up in this little lot in the Pacific.’
‘No, why would he be?’ Lucy said, but fear gripped her at the thought of Chris in the hands of the Japanese.
The girls felt as if they had been dealt a double-edged sword as spring began to take hold, for they had a very welcome pay increase to £50 per year, almost a pound a week, and the knowledge that when they took their State examination in July, provided they passed and became junior staff nurses, they would receive £60 a year. At more or less the same time, though, the clothing coupon points were reduced to 48. ‘Well, all I can say is, thank God for Gwen,’ Jenny said. ‘Or we’d all be going about in rags.’
And no one would want that, especially as American troops had begun arriving in Birmingham. They were a great attraction to the young girls, including nurses, for the city had had few young men in it for some time. They loved to go to the cinema, which they called ‘the movies’ and to dance. Lucy hadn’t gone to a dance, but Jenny and Babs had, and they described it to her. It was very far removed from the dances she had learnt with Clodagh.
‘They are wild,’ Babs said. ‘They dance this dance called the jitterbug to big-band music like “In the Mood”, and stuff like that.’
‘What on earth is a jitterbug, when it’s at home?’
‘It’s this crazy dance where the American boys swing you round so fast you can sometimes show your knickers,’ Babs said.
‘Yes, and they shoot you between their legs,’ Jenny said, ‘and spin you round until you’re dizzy, and when the music stops you want to do it all over again.’
Babs nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yeah, it is the most tremendous fun. You should come, it’s such a laugh.’
Lucy shook her head and pointed to her chest of drawers. ‘There is a ring in that drawer there that says I’m spoken for.’
‘Just because you’re engaged doesn’t mean you have to live like a nun.’
‘Oh, come on, Jenny,’ Lucy snapped. ‘I’d hardly like it if I heard of Chris swinging some random girl between his legs or smooching in the back row of a cinema.’
‘You never know what some of the soldiers get up to,’ Jenny said.
‘Fighting mostly,’ Lucy said quietly. ‘And my Chris does his level best to patch those soldiers up so that they can go back to do it all over again. He can’t tell me where he is, but that hardly matters because similar scenes are being enacted everywhere. Chris said some of them take some patching up and others he can do nothing for.’
No one said anything for a moment or two. Lucy’s words dripped into the stillness. ‘I’m sorry,’ Jenny said. ‘That was terribly wrong and insensitive of me.’
‘It’s all right,’ Lucy said, and it was. Jenny spoke without thinking, that was all.
Though they continued to go dancing they never asked her to go again, but the three of them did have regular trips to the cinema.
Like many girls, both Babs and Jenny were taken up with the Americans, and no wonder really. They were so exotic. Their accents had only ever been heard on the silver screen, for a start, and then GIs’ uniforms were so much smarter than the average British Tommy’s. They seemed to have more money than the average British Tommy too, and chewed gum, and had chocolate and nylon stockings for the chosen few.
More importantly they were not yet war weary, but still filled with the exuberance of youth, which had nearly been sucked out of the young people of Britain. But they were no fools, these Americans, and knew they were in Britain for a short time before they had to face the enemy. Some would not return, so they were living life to the full, and who could blame them?
Certainly not the girls, but Jenny and Babs had to pull in their wings a bit because their final exams were looming. Barely were the exams over than there was a rumour running round the canteen of bombs dropping over near the Rover car factory in Solihull. Many didn’t believe that because it had been a year since the last raid. However, that night many planes pummelled Birmingham, mainly in and near Handsworth, although bombs were also dropped in Duddeston, and in Lancaster Street, right outside the fire station and very close to the hospital. Lucy felt quite panicky at the thought that it might be the start of another blitz but there was only one more raid and that was an incendiary attack that was concentrated in Yardley, far too far away to have any impact on the hospital.
Quiet night followed quiet night, and Brummies began to emerge cautiously on to the streets again. They resumed their visits to the cinemas, and Babs and Jenny started going to the dances again after they found out that they had all passed their exams.
They were now junior staff nurses and for the next year they would be learning and practising the techniques of ward management so that they could take charge of a ward the following year. To show their rank they each had a new and longer cap of white starched organdie folded into three, held in place with gold safety pins and fastened to their hair with white grips. Lucy couldn’t remember ever being so proud in the whole of her life.
Gwen was almost as proud and took three photographs, one to send to Chris, one for herself to frame and stand on the sideboard, and one for Lucy to send to her mother. The sincere and heartfelt congratulations from Lucy’s family in America in response to that photograph moved her to tears.
As the autumn wore on the tide of the war was turning, and for the first time in a long while Lucy looked forward to 1943. However, halfway through January, Lucy was working on the ward when she was told that a Mrs Gilbert was waiting for her in the reception of Outpatients. With great trepidation, for neither had heard from Chris since well before Christmas, she hurried to see what she wanted.
Gwen had tears streaming from her eyes as she watched Lucy approach, and yet she seemed to be smiling, which unnerved Lucy totally. She felt as if her own heart was splintering into pieces for she knew only something of great importance would have brought Gwen to seek her out at the hospital. She could guess what that something was so, as she put her arm around Gwen’s shoulders, she led her gently to a seat and sat beside her. Lucy was shaking herself as she held her hand and Gwen felt the tremors running through it.
‘Tell me,’ Lucy said. She said it because she knew she must, though her heart screamed denial and her heart thumped so hard she knew Gwen could probably hear it.
Gwen gave a sniff and dried her cheeks with her handkerchief as she said, ‘You had to know straight away, my dear. These are tears of joy because Chris has been taken prisoner by the Germans.’
‘Taken prisoner?’ Lucy repeated
‘Yes,’ Gwen said. ‘He is a POW. My dear, isn’t it wonderful news?’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course it is,’ Gwen said. ‘The war is over for him. He can sit out what is left of it in comparative safety.’
Gwen passed her the telegram so that Lucy could read it for herself and she realised that Gwen was right. Short of coming home, this was the best outcome all round. Her heart felt as light as air. They would find out where he was and they could write to him and send him parcels. They must send parcels. She wasn’t sure how well men were fed in these places.
She leapt to her feet, pulled Gwen up and hugged her delightedly. She felt so happy, so relieved, that if she hadn’t been a nurse she could have danced a jig. Still, if she had done that, she thought with a wry smile, she’d probably be found a bed in the mental block.
‘Oh, Gwen,’ she said, ‘I was so afraid when I saw you standing there in tears.’
‘My dear,’ Gwen said, ‘when the boy came with the telegram I felt my heart had stopped beating and I could barely open it, my hands shook so much. And when I read it I felt such an ease in my heart and I had to come and tell you. I wouldn’t disturb you normally. I know you are working.’
‘Yes, and I must return to the ward,’ Lucy said. ‘But thank you for coming to tell me. I didn’t recognise the worry I carried around with me until it was gone. But I shall not really feel at ease until I get a letter from Chris and know that he is all right.’
‘I feel the same,’ Gwen said.
However, Lucy’s lightness of spirit could not be hidden from the men in the male surgical ward she was working in. ‘By, lass,’ said one eventually, ‘you look like the cat that got the cream.’
‘Oh,’ said Lucy, almost hugging herself in delight, ‘It’s much, much better than that.’
