Mr. Taylor had come up from his garage in Brechin to teach the recruits, two by two. He sat next to Dot with his hands on his knees, arms braced, as if he expected the car to take off again. Then he slowly exhaled, making his bushy black mustache flutter.
“Perhaps your pal should do the drive back, eh?”
Dot slumped forward in despair. “Why can’t I get anything right?”
“It’s fine, Dot, really.” Maisie reached forward to lay her hand onto Dot’s back. “Driving’s a complicated thing to learn. I’m sure Mr. Taylor took ages to learn to drive too, didn’t you, Mr. Taylor?”
The instructor turned to stare at Maisie with indignation, but eventually said, “Aye, well, maybe not quite as many problems, but I suppose it took a wee while.”
Maisie flashed him a grateful smile. “See? So don’t be down. It’s really not easy, you know.”
“But you took to it like the proverbial duck!” exclaimed Dot. “You only stalled the engine twice, and you certainly didn’t almost put us in a ditch like I did.”
“You didn’t put us in a ditch, Dot—”
“Almost in a ditch, I said,”
“No, not even almost in a ditch.” Maisie was trying not to smile. “We were still a good three feet from the actual ditch. Well, perhaps two feet. All right, we were six inches away …”
There was a peculiar snuffling noise and Maisie realized that Mr. Taylor was chuckling, and though she didn’t want to hurt Dot’s feelings, it was hard not to join in. But then Dot began to giggle as she clambered out and opened the back door for Maisie.
“Get in the front then, Flash,” Dot said, as she and Maisie swapped places, “and show me how it’s done.”
Maisie settled herself into the driver’s seat and grasped the steering wheel again, careful not to bump her blisters. Thinking hard about everything Mr. Taylor had told her, about the steering and gear changes, she started the engine and moved the car forward. Thankfully it didn’t stall, but after twenty yards, the engine began to whine and Mr. Taylor tapped his knuckle against the gear stick. “Come on, lassie, you can’t stay in first gear all the way.”
“Oh, right, yes, sorry,” said Maisie, pushing down on the clutch and wrestling the gear stick into second as the car continued up the lane toward the lodge, and then into third.
“That’s it, lassie, you’ve got it now,” said Mr. Taylor, “which makes one of you anyway.”
“I’m not sure I’ve really ‘got it,’” said Maisie with a proud smile, “but with a little more practice, I might. Will we see you again tomorrow?”
“No, that’s your instruction finished,” said Mr. Taylor. “Miss Cradditch says you’ve got a lot to learn in a short time, so this is all you’ll get from me.”
Maisie braked a little too hard and the car slammed to a halt in front of the lodge. “But we’ve only had one afternoon’s instruction. And on a car, not a truck.”
“If you can drive a car, you can drive a truck,” he said. “It’s all just a matter of scale, after all.”
“Scale?” Maisie could not believe what she was hearing. “A three-ton Bedford truck is not the same size as this car.”
Mr. Taylor gave another mustache-ruffling sigh. “As I said, it’s just a matter of scale. Now, don’t you fret, lass. It’s clear that you’re smart and strong, and if you concentrate, you’ll do just fine.”
Smart and strong? Those were two words she’d seldom ever heard used about her. Quite the opposite. For years, her father had been telling her she was weak willed, lazy, and stupid. And her mother always said that while Maisie was handsome enough—“handsome” was Mother’s word for Maisie; “pretty” was reserved for Beth—she’d have to shed some weight before she got too much older, if she wanted to marry. That was Maisie in her parents’ eyes, lazy and fat, certainly not smart or strong.
Maisie turned and offered Mr. Taylor her hand.
“Thank you,” she said, “I mean, for today’s lesson. I enjoyed it, though I’m not sure if I could ever do it—”
“I told you, you’ll do fine,” he replied, taking her hand in his meaty fist. Then he leaned closer and whispered, “But perhaps your friend ought to take the train or the bus instead.”
He gave Maisie a conspiratorial nudge and pulled a watch from his pocket. “I’d best be off. Mrs. Taylor will have my tea on the table at five o’clock sharp, and if I’m late, she’ll feed it to the dog.”
“If we get no more driving lessons,” moaned Maisie as she and Dot walked back to the hut, “I won’t have a clue how to do that again in a week’s time, let alone four weeks, when we get sent out to our new postings.”
“Well, as long as you remember enough by this Friday, you’ll be able to drive me to the station when they send me home,” Dot replied, misery clouding her usually bright voice.
Maisie nudged Dot’s elbow. “Come on, mopey. We’ve got first aid training on Monday, which’ll be interesting, won’t it?”
Dot looked unconvinced. “I fainted when we dissected a frog in school,” she groaned. “First sight of the blood, and I—” She mimed toppling over in a dead faint.
Maisie laughed.
“I’m serious,” Dot said. “I might as well pack my bags right now.”
“But first aid’s not all about mopping up blood,” countered Maisie, “or even bandages and slings. It’s helping people, and that’s what you’re best at, after all.”
Which was true. On their first day at Shandford Lodge, Dot had offered to help Maisie make up her bed with the stiff white sheets and thin gray blankets issued to them. By the time they had folded the corners in tight and smooth, and had helped some of the others too, Maisie already liked Dot very much. Dot had a genuine desire to get along with other people, though Maisie couldn’t quite work out why such a shy and slight girl would have volunteered for this very physical lumberjill life.
“I suppose,” replied Dot. “Just don’t send me any injured frogs!”
The following week, even before the end of their first aid training, Maisie could see that Dot was a gifted first-aider. The visiting tutor, a retired nurse from Dundee, recommended that Dot do additional training so she’d be fully certified. Since every camp was required to have someone with a first aid certificate, Dot was thrilled. It meant that not only would she stay a lumberjill, she’d also earn an extra shilling a week in her pay packet once she was out in the field.
Maisie was delighted for her friend too, and had to smile when she overheard Dot reassuring one of the other more squeamish recruits over breakfast the next day.
“Oh, don’t worry. First aid is more about helping people than it is about mopping up blood. I’m sure you’ll be absolutely fine.”
And suddenly it was the sixth and final week of training. This time next week, Maisie wouldn’t be a recruit, and she wouldn’t be at Shandford Lodge. She’d be a real lumberjill, working in a real camp, at last. The one thing, however, that dulled her excitement was knowing that she might be there alone. There was no guarantee that anyone from this group would be sent to the same place as Maisie, let alone a close friend like Dot, and they wouldn’t find out where they were all going until the postings were announced on Friday, the day before