And could they have known it, the entire North Atlantic fleet was already hunting, enraged, for the German ship, and before four more days had run, Bismarck would be sunk. An eye for an eye, people would say it was.
Four days later, Caroline Tiptree picked up the letters that fell on the doormat at Jackmans Cottage.
‘Post,’ she called, chokily, pushing a buff OHMS envelope into her coat pocket. ‘Only one. For you, mother.’
Then she ran up the garden path and down the road to the bus stop, all at once apprehensive. Because the buff OHMS envelope could mean only one thing.
She collapsed on the wooden seat in the bus shelter, asking herself if joining the ATS was such a good idea after all, and knowing there was nothing she could do now, except fail the medical. Which she wouldn’t.
She rose shakily to her feet as the bright red bus rounded the corner, wondering where she would be in August when Jeffrey came on leave and praying that it was miles and miles from Nether Hutton.
But it wasn’t August she should be worrying about, was it? It was when she must tell her mother about the buff OHMS envelope. Not tonight, of course. Afterwards, perhaps, when she knew she was medically fit, or perhaps when her calling-up papers came would be the best time, because then her mother wouldn’t be able to do anything about the forged signature.
But what had she done? What had made her do such a thing when she knew that soon, anyway, she would have to register for military service? Couldn’t she have waited just a few more months?
‘No, Caroline Tiptree, you could not,’ whispered the small voice of reason in her ear. ‘You know that if you are around when Jeffrey comes home in August, your mother will have arranged a wedding, and you will go along with it as you always do!’
But not any longer! Oh, she loved Jeffrey and there would be a wedding, nothing was more certain. But when the time came it would be she, Caroline, who would name the day.
Sorry, mother, she said in her mind, I have done the most awful, deceitful thing, and you’ll have every right to hit the roof when you find out about it.
And sorry, Jeffrey, too, but just this once I was doing what I want to do. How it would turn out she dare not think, and what Nether Hutton would make of her slipping away to be an ATS girl would take a bit of facing up to, as well. Little villages were like that. People knew everyone, and their ancestry, too. What The Village thought was very important, and Mrs Frobisher – as well as her own mother – had left people in Nether Hutton in no doubt that a wedding was in the offing, just as soon as the Royal Navy allowed.
She handed a florin to the conductress, said ‘One-and-three return, please,’ then stared fixedly out of the window to wonder, yet again, where she would be in mid-August? In uniform, perhaps? Or if she were lucky, driving an Army truck? And thinking about the fuss and bother at Jackmans Cottage there had been when her deceit came to light.
The bus stopped at the crossroads and the young woman who always got on smiled and said ‘Morning,’ as she usually did, then sat down beside her. The buff OHMS envelope was still in Carrie’s pocket. No chance of opening it, now, thanks be.
‘Mm,’ she smiled back. ‘Looks like being a lovely day…’
Which was, of course, the understatement of the week!
Three
On the day the buff OHMS envelope arrived, it lay unopened in Carrie’s jacket pocket until ten that morning. Medical in four days’ time she read, dry-mouthed, in the privacy of the ladies’ lavatory. Friday, May 30 at 12.30. And since her lunch hour began at 12.15, it would save the embarrassment of having to ask the head cashier for an hour off work, and being obliged to tell him why she wanted it! She had wondered where she would be when Jeffrey’s leave began some time in August, and now she knew.
The time – ten days from the end of her initial training as a motor transport driver; the place – with the Royal Army Service Corps, somewhere in Wiltshire, and new recruit though she had been, she knew better than to ask for compassionate leave. You only got compassionate when it concerned husbands, or already-arranged weddings. You did not get it, especially in the middle of a training course, for a fiancé or wedding dates that might have been!
There had been a hurt letter from her mother and another from Jeffrey, telling her that the entire village was talking about her behaviour and asking were they or were they not supposed to be getting married? But distance gave her courage and she had replied in sweet relief, telling him that next time she was sure they could both come up with a date to suit everyone – and that she loved him, of course.
So now, on this last-day-but-one of August she stood in Lincoln station, kitbag beside her, respirator over her shoulder and with her, three equally curious ATS privates and a lance corporal. They had met up on the platform. Draft HP4. Report to the RTO on arrival at Lincoln, said their travel instructions.
There was a Railway Transport Office on all main railway stations, their purpose to aid the passage of servicemen and women and goods of military importance from Point A to Point B
‘I think I’ll see the bod in the RTO,’ said the lance corporal, who had quickly ascertained she was the only one with rank up, and even one stripe entitled her to take charge. ‘They’ll know where we go from here.’
She had quickly returned.
‘He says he hasn’t a clue where HP4 is. All he said was, “Oh. So you’ll be one of them…”’
He had settled his pencil behind his right ear and pulled out a list from beneath a pile of timetables.
‘All he knew, he said, was that he was expecting a draft of five, and when we’d all arrived he had a number to ring, so we could be collected. And he said to nip out smartly, because the WVS trolley was expected any time now and we were to get ourselves a cup of tea. We might be in for a long wait, he said.’
It was almost an hour after they had eaten beetroot sandwiches and drunk large mugs of tea -offered with the most kindly smiles – that an Army corporal, the stripes on his arms brilliantly white with Blanco, clumped past them and into the RTO, then clumped out almost at once, to confront the group.
‘Draft HP4, are you? Let’s be seeing your warrants, then!’
‘Where are we going?’ the lance-corporal wanted to know.
‘That, young lady, is not for you to ask, not with one stripe up it isn’t. So let’s be having you. There’s a transport outside, so collect your kit and get on board. The sooner we get going the sooner you’ll know, won’t you?’ he said with the satisfaction of someone who knew something they did not. ‘And you’re in for the shock of your lives,’ he added.
They sat on low wooden benches in the back of the Army lorry, holding tightly to the metal struts supporting the camouflaged canvas roof and had soon left Lincoln behind. Now they drove through open country with hedges and pastures and fields yellow with the stubble of newly-harvested wheat and barley.
Carrie gazed out over the tailboard to see flat countryside and a wide, open sky. Farming country, this, and not unlike the fields around Nether Hutton. She steadied herself as the lorry braked suddenly.
‘Hang on!’ called the driver, swinging into a narrow lane. ‘Nearly there now, girls.’
They dropped speed and climbed a small hill. Ahead was a wood and a church; to their right a gate lodge outside which a sergeant waved her arms. They stopped with a skidding squeal, then reversed.
‘How-do, sergeant. Got a load of trouble for you!’
‘Have you now!’ She stood, hands on hips, glaring into the back of the transport. Wide-eyed, draft HP4 stared back.
‘Right, then! I am Sergeant James.’ She consulted a pencilled list.