‘You’re late.’
‘Sorry, Patti,’ Sally apologised breathlessly as she hurried onto the stage. ‘My Tommy cut his finger, and then …’ She stopped when Patti raised her eyebrows and tutted sharply, ‘Yes, we can all see that, there’s blood all over your sleeve.’
Sally sighed. None of the other Waltonettes had children so how could she expect them to understand? She sensed that Charlie was beginning to think that he would have preferred to take on a stand-in singer without children had he had the choice. She was lucky to have this well-paid source of extra income, she reminded herself, even if the money wasn’t regular, and she certainly couldn’t afford to lose it by offending Patti, no matter how much she resented the other girl’s high-handed and unsympathetic attitude.
‘Come on, let’s get on with it,’ Sybil demanded impatiently. ‘My new chap’s taking me out later.’
‘If by your new chap you mean that fella wot was buying you drinks the other night, Syl, I’ve got news for you,’ Shirley chipped in. ‘He lives two streets away from me and he’s got a wife who’ll be down here telling you wot’s wot if you don’t watch out.’
‘He never said owt to me about any wife,’ Sybil bridled.
‘No, well, they never do, do they?’ Shirley countered drily, ‘but you’ve bin told now. Three kiddies, he’s got, and another on the way.’
‘His wife’s welcome to him,’ Sybil announced after she had digested this news. ‘I didn’t think much to him anyway, so he’s no loss to me.’ Sides, I’ve heard that there’s some more of them Yanks due to arrive soon. Handsome lads, they are, and free spending too.’
‘Come on, you two, stop wasting time and let’s get practising.’
Patti might be the lead singer but she was older and not as pretty as either Shirley or Sybil, and Sybil had told Sally when Patti’s back had been turned that she reckoned that Patti was jealous of them.
‘It’s me and Shirl that the chaps come to see, not ’er, and she knows it. Past it, she is, but she won’t admit it, allus banging on about how she could have been singing with the BBC lot but for her feeling she owed it to Charlie to stick with him.’
‘She’s got a good voice.’ Sally had felt bound to defend the older girl.
‘Not as good as yours, it isn’t,’ Sybil had surprised her by saying. ‘Not that that will do you any favours in her eyes. You want to watch out, Sally, otherwise, she’ll be getting jealous of you and then she’ll be tricking you to make it look like you’re out of key. Done that a few times to Eileen, she did, until Eileen got wise to her.’
‘Ready, girls? We’ll start off with “Sunshine” and then go into “Apple Tree”, OK?’
‘I don’t know why we’re singing about ruddy sunshine when all we’ve had for days is rain,’ Shirley grumbled under her breath, but Sally could already feel the weight of her problems slipping from her shoulders for a few precious minutes in the joy of singing, her spirits lifted by the music. Singing was her special precious something that enriched her senses, although she would have died of embarrassment if she had ever had to explain to anyone just how she felt about it.
‘Thank heavens that’s over with,’ Sybil grimaced. ‘Patti was in that sour a mood she could have curdled milk. Where you off now then, Sally? Back to them kids of yours?’
Sally shook her head. ‘I’m doing a night shift at the factory. I had to swap a shift with someone else to get time off to rehearse.’
Sybil wrinkled her nose. ‘I dunno know why you do that factory work. I mean, it’s not as though you have to, wi’ you having them kiddies.’
Sally didn’t say anything. What could she say, after all?
*
‘And you, Grey, you’re to report to the quartermaster’s office. They’re short of a couple of clerk stenographers down there.’
Sam’s heart sank. Of all the bad luck. Working in the quartermaster’s office had to be the most boring job in the barracks. The last thing she’d joined up for was to spend the war typing out lists of supplies; typing of any kind was bad enough, but this …
‘Dismissed.’
Miserably Sam fell into line with the other girls, her attention momentarily distracted by the roar of a motorcycle as a dispatch rider swept past them, the wheels of his motorcycle sending up a spray of water from the puddles. A dispatch rider – now there was a job that would have appealed to her, Sam thought enviously. She could ride a motorbike, after all, having ‘borrowed’ Russell’s – without his knowledge. She wouldn’t even have minded being sent to work with one of the ack-ack gun teams, not that girls were actually allowed to fire the guns. Anything would have been better than Supplies, and the typing of tedious lists. Sam longed for the excitement of tracking enemy targets, breaking enemy codes, doing something that made her feel that she had a real part to play in winning the war.
‘I’m glad that we’re going to be working together, aren’t you?’
Mouse’s timid comment made Sam’s heart sink even further. She had nothing against the other girl, it was just that she simply wasn’t her sort.
Deysbrook Barracks had originally been a Territorial Army hall and store, which, like so many others, had been extended to cope with the extra demands of the war. The quartermaster’s office was housed in a new concrete building, beyond which lay a vast area of what looked like Nissen huts, stores and storage bays serviced by its own delivery yard. The arrangement of the buildings had created a wind tunnel effect that filled the yard with cold salt sea air, accompanied by a droning buffeting noise from the wind itself, and Sam was not surprised to see Mouse shiver miserably and huddle deeper into her greatcoat.
‘This can’t be the right place,’ she protested, when Sam pushed open the door labelled ‘Quartermaster’s Office’. The rough concrete floor was so cold that Sam could feel its chill right through the soles of her shoes. The air smelled slightly damp and rank, and the single bulb dangling from a cable and swinging in the draught from the door did nothing to enhance the surroundings.
On a notice board were pinned a raft of MOD leaflets and warnings, but no one was sitting behind the battered desk, and Sam, peering into the dimly lit hinterland of shelving behind the desk, was unable to see anyone.
She was just wondering what they should do when a tall fair-haired man, wearing the insignia of the Royal Engineers, and his sergeant’s stripes, appeared out of the murky shadows behind the desk.
‘Privates Grey and Hatton reporting for stenographer duties for the quartermaster’s office, Sarge,’ Sam told him smartly. ‘But we can’t seem to find anyone to report to.’
‘The quartermaster’s been called away. He should be back soon.’ The sergeant had an unexpectedly kind face, and an injured hand, Sam noticed, which probably explained why he wasn’t on active service.
The outer door to the office opened and the young Royal Engineer who came in announced anxiously, ‘Sarge, them sleepers you wanted have arrived and they’re unloading them in the yard, but Corp Watson says you’d better get over there fast, before some other ruddy unit nicks them.’
It was a good five minutes after the sergeant had gone before the door opened again, this time to admit a short red-faced captain with greying ginger hair. He gave both girls hostile glares before stamping over to the desk.
‘Privates Grey and Hatton reporting for duty to Captain Elland—’