‘A leg of lamb?’ Nan giggled, to which her aunt replied that she had just seen a purple pig fly past the top of the street! Legs of lamb, indeed!
‘When do you think you’ll hear from the ATS, then?’
‘Dunno, Auntie Mim. Once I’ve had my medical, they might send for me pretty sharpish. I asked the corporal to do what she could for me. Fingers crossed there’ll be a letter in the morning.’ A buff envelope with no stamp on it, and O H M S printed across the top.
She switched on the wireless, settling herself in the fireside rocker, tapping her toes in time to the dance music, thinking that if she wasn’t so set on joining the Army and Auntie Mim had a spare bed, of course, Farthing Street would have suited her nicely for the duration.
Oh, hurry up buff envelope, do!
On Saturday night, the telephone in Jackmans Cottage rang.
‘It’s for you.’ Janet Tiptree, who always picked up the phone, handed it to her daughter. ‘Jeffrey,’ she mouthed.
‘Darling,’ Carrie whispered, startled. ‘How lovely of you to –’
‘Caroline – listen! I’ve been hanging about outside the phonebox for ages waiting for this call to come through and we only have three minutes, so what are you thinking about, joining up! If you must do something so stupid, why not join the Wrens? And why did I have to hear it from your mother? Surely I merit some consideration?’
There was a small uneasy silence that seemed to last an age, then she said,
‘I – I – well, I was going to tell you Jeffrey and anyway, nothing is settled, yet.’
‘I should damn well hope not. We’re supposed to be getting married when I’ve finished my training – well, aren’t we?’
‘Y-yes,’ was all she could say, because she could hear his angry breathing and besides, there wasn’t a lot she could say to the contrary in three minutes. ‘But please don’t speak to me like that? And I’m sorry you are upset. I’ll write, shall I? A nice long letter…?’
‘The only letter I want from you is telling me you’ve forgotten all about the ATS. Did you have a brainstorm, or something?’
‘N-no!’ Oh, why did she let him boss her around so? ‘And thank you for ringing, Jeffrey,’ she hastened when the warning pips pinged stridently in her ear. ‘Take care of yourself. I’ll write. Tonight.’
The line went dead, then began to buzz. She looked angrily at the receiver, then slammed it down.
‘So? Your young man wasn’t best pleased?’ Janet Tiptree said softly, smugly.
‘No, he wasn’t. He yelled at me! How dare he! And you shouldn’t have told him, mother. It wasn’t up to you, you know!’
‘Maybe not, but someone had to. Perhaps now you’ll give a bit more thought to your wedding! You are engaged, or had you forgotten?’
‘Of course I hadn’t!’ Being engaged, surely, was something you didn’t forget, especially when you wore a ring on your left hand. ‘Jeffrey and I will be married.’
They would. It was what getting engaged was about. But not just yet. Or would he bluster and bluff and demand, as he did the night her mother was out and they had done – that? She hadn’t wanted to and it mustn’t happen again, or next time she might get pregnant and her mother would have every excuse, then, to get them down the aisle at breakneck speed.
‘Ah, yes.’ Her mother interrupted her thoughts. ‘But when?
‘When the war allows,’ Carrie answered cagily, which was true, really, because now her war had to be taken into consideration.
She closed her eyes, wondering how she would face her mother when the letter telling her to report for her medical arrived; wondered, too, how she was to explain the forged signature on the bottom of her application form.
‘Are we going to listen to the news, mother? Shall I switch on? It’s nearly nine o’clock.’
It was all she could think of to say, dammit!
On May 24th, the newsreader announced in a graver than usual voice that HMS Hood, the biggest and fastest ship in the Royal Navy, had been sunk by the German battleship Bismarck, and only three from a crew of almost fifteen hundred had survived.
It was as if, Nan frowned, Hitler’s lot could do what they wanted, even at sea. The Hood had been sunk, the morning paper reported, by one chance shell landing in the ship’s magazine. Dead lucky, them Jairmans!
She rounded her mouth and slammed down her feet. She was on her way to the medical centre in Albion Street, and the sooner they pronounced her A1 fit, the sooner she would be in uniform, because this morning’s terrible news made her all the more sure it was what she must do.
She pushed open the door. There was brown linoleum on the floor; the walls were green-painted. The place smelled of damp and disinfectant.
Nan was pointed to a cubicle, told to undress to the waist, put on the white cotton smock and wait to be called.
Someone examined her mouth and muttered, ‘Two cavities,’ and Nan was as sure as she could be that that meant fillings. She had never had fillings. Just to think of them made her flinch, because she had heard they were excruciatingly painful.
A doctor listened to her chest, counted her pulse rate, made muttered asides to the clerk beside him who wrote on a notepad.
She was told to get dressed again, hang the white cotton smock on the hook in the cubicle, then follow the nurse to the ablutions, where there were more cubicles.
‘Please give a urine sample. In this.’ A kidney dish was thrust at each young woman. ‘Then you transfer it into this.’ A small, wide-necked bottle. ‘And try not to spill it on the floor. When you have provided your sample, you will take it to the desk, give it, together with your surname and initial, to the nurse there, and she will attach a label to the bottle. Oh, hurry along, do!’
Some looked shocked. Others giggled. A few blushed. Nan thought it was a lot of fuss over a bottle of wee, but she supposed they knew what they were doing.
‘There was one girl there who couldn’t do it, so they stood her in front of a running cold water tap, but it made no difference,’ Nan told Auntie Mim that evening. ‘She’s got to go back tomorrow and have another try, poor thing.’
‘And do you think you have passed?’
‘I reckon so. They said if we weren’t told to report back within three days, we could take it that we were OK, so it’s fingers crossed.’
‘And you still want to go, Nan?’
‘Yes, I do. Let’s hope I’m on my way before your lodger comes back.’
‘You’ll have to sleep on the sofa in the parlour if you aren’t, young woman.’
Nan hoped she would be in uniform before then. The parlour sofa was hard and stuffed with horsehair.
‘Can we run to a cup of tea?’ she asked. ‘In celebration, sort of, of me bein’ half way there.’
‘We’ve been having too many cups of tea lately, miss. But there’s cocoa on the shelf, if you fancy that. And make it with dried milk.’ Cocoa was unrationed when you could get it, as was powdered milk, in a blue metallic tin. ‘Can’t get those sailors on HMS Hood out of my mind,’ she whispered, picking up her knitting which usually soothed her. ‘There’ll be all those women getting telegrams, poor souls.’
‘Yes, but I’ll bet you anything you like that Winston Churchill’s fightin’ mad. I’ll bet he’s rung them up at the Admiralty, and told