Girls on the Home Front Read online

  ‘I could strangle him,’ Fran hissed, wanting to cry.

  ‘You couldn’t catch him,’ she heard Sarah whisper.

  ‘Stan, not the owl.’

  ‘I know, you daft beggar.’ They laughed together, but there was only a strained humour in it.

  ‘We both know this’ll wreck Da’s dream completely. First our Betty, then Mam not thriving, me in the Factory amongst explosives, and now Stan returning to the pit when he were set for a different world. And it’s me that’s to break it to him.’ Fran snatched a look across the aisle at Beth, who was knitting furiously, and whispered, ‘How’s it … I mean, is he—’

  ‘Don’t. We just have to wait and see,’ Sarah interrupted.

  Fran stared out of the window, the fading moonlight glinting through the changing leaves, and hints of autumn already in the air.

  Damn Stan, she thought, because he was right; it had to be her, a letter or a phone call would be too cruel, and an appearance out of the blue the bitter end. She tried to think of how she could set it all out for her da and mam before Stan came through the door. For if she didn’t, words would be thrown that could never be taken back.

  Sarah silently packed away her torch, then held out her hand, which Fran gripped. ‘Aye, we have to wait and see,’ Sarah repeated.

  Fran sighed. ‘I know, and just when I’ve had me da deciding to be kind and calling out to me to be safe …’

  ‘You’ve work to do, so don’t mither it, or you’ll end all your problems, and the rest of ours,’ Sarah said.

  Bert went into a pothole and out again, the wooden seats spared no one, and Maisie groaned behind them. Sarah asked, ‘So, will you still go with Davey when you get back today to sort out that man who’s buying your mam’s rugs too cheap? The one you reckon is selling them on to someone else? Or are you going home to talk to yer da?’

  ‘He’ll be pulling the cabbage at the allotment, or with your da at the canaries, so I’ll go. Can’t put off sorting out that idiot just to make things easier for another idiot called Stanhope.’

  Beth listened to them laughing, but sat still, letting her knitting rest on her lap because she had heard what Fran said just now to Sarah about Stan coming back. After the war started in 1939, she’d been walking out with Stan when Bob had come home in his uniform to Massingham after his training. Right grand he’d looked too in his sailor’s uniform, and it was as though Beth hadn’t seen the lad before, though he’d been in the class above Stan and Davey. He’d gone back to serve on minesweepers out of Grimsby, but caught pneumonia, and been sent home for a few weeks’ sick leave. She should have told Stan before he’d caught her with Bob in one of Mr Massingham’s cornfields, but she hadn’t, and that had been that.

  She shut her mind against the look on Stan’s face, and the burning shame she’d felt. He had begged her just once, the following day, to come back to him, but by the end of the week he had walked as tall as he always had, and within weeks he was as pleasant as he’d always been, though his eyes showed how he was suffering. She and Bob had brought the wedding forward so they could rent a house in Sledgeford and have a fresh start. It meant she didn’t have to see Stan and the girls every day.

  But Sledgeford wasn’t really her home, it was just a house, and she was lonely even though Fran and Sarah were friends again. Aye, achingly lonely she was. She’d taken to wondering, as she lay in bed, if she had made the wrong choice for if she’d stayed with Stan, he’d likely not have gone to Oxford, or if he had, she could have gone too.

  Beth sighed, for she couldn’t rightly remember Bob any more, but she could still see and hear Stan as though he were right in front of her. She continued to twist her ring, trying to get her head straight before she came anywhere near the detonators.

  Chapter Three

  They eventually neared the Factory as dawn was threatening to break over the mist-covered acres of buildings that housed the different sectors. Fran checked her watch. It was five forty. ‘Well done, Bert,’ she called. ‘You’ve picked up that five minutes. No money lost today, lad, so I’ve decided it will be a good day.’

  ‘You and whose army, our Fran?’ he replied, parking the bus.

  The girls on the bus called, ‘She doesn’t need an army, she’s a Hall.’

  They filed off, grumbling about their numb or sore backsides, sure they had the slatted seats imprinted on their flesh. They walked in a crocodile to the gates, and as always it reminded Fran and Sarah of class trips to find fallen leaves they’d take back to draw round and colour in. They showed their passes at the gate, and still in a crocodile walked along the wide roadway with their guard, turning off to their section’s changing rooms, where they would put on their blue overalls, turbans and felted shoes, unless it were messy work, in which case it would be spark safe Wellington boots. They would also divest themselves of any dangerous articles.

  There were already some women changing, having arrived from other towns and villages. There was one newcomer, though, standing to one side of the white tiled room and already tying up her blue apron-type overall, then smoothing it over her smart black skirt, and pulling out the collar of her pink blouse so it lay along the collar of the overalls. Her bare legs looked cold, as she pulled on the Wellington boots over her bare feet. Oh, so she had worn nylons?

  Fran snatched a look at the coats hanging on hooks. Yes, sure enough there were a pair of stockings hanging from a smart coat pocket. The girl was now wringing the turban she had been designated, and looking wildly about her.

  ‘Nerves,’ whispered Beth to Fran.

  Mr Swinton was standing by the far door, as was usual at the start of a shift, as if he was guarding the way to their various workshops, his hands balled up in his pockets. The girls thought he did that to remind them he had fists. He hadn’t used them as such, to anyone’s knowledge, but he wasn’t above pushing and shoving as he passed by in the corridor. Fran was waiting for it to be her turn, which it would be, she was sure, for she was a Hall and the sister of the scholarship boy – a scholarship his own son, Tim, had sat, and failed.

  The bus ‘team’ slipped off their rings, or wrapped a plaster around, and checked for hairgrips and hairpins. Fran removed her belt, which had a metal buckle. How stupid. She’d meant to leave it on the chest of drawers in her box room. She stuffed everything into the envelope on which she’d written her name a month ago; it was growing increasingly tatty.

  The new girl continued to stand there, but was now leaning back against the wall, still mashing her turban. Her mid-brown hair hung loose; her hazel eyes still darted about.

  Once everyone had divested themselves of their contraband, as it was called, Mr Swinton snapped, ‘Jewellery, matches, cigarettes, hairgrips, and anything else metallic removed? Then …’

  He rose on his toes, and Franny’s heart sank. He was going to go through his safety-and-security rigmarole. It wasn’t even the start of a new week and therefore not obligatory safety procedure, but he was staring at the new girl. Ah, Fran thought, it’s for her sake and it’s going to raise the level of her nerves something chronic, poor thing, for she still looks like a rabbit caught in the gamekeeper’s shotgun. A white rabbit, because she was so pale she almost matched the wall tiles.

  Mr Swinton withdrew one hand from his pocket and jabbed his forefinger at the girl, directing her into the group, then returned the hand to its lair. She obeyed and stood next to Fran, who smiled. The girl’s shoulders dropped in relief as she tried to smile back. Rising on his toes again, Mr Swinton spelled out the need for secrecy and shut mouths, for some lugs were always open and sabotage always a fear in a workplace such as this. It wasn’t just explosions, but machinery that could be destroyed and therefore armaments stalled. He stared around at them all as though they were saboteurs in disguise, but they knew it by heart and no one took any notice except for the new girl.

  Swinton drew breath and then launched into the remaining rhetoric, dragging his hands from his pockets and almost conducting as he extol
led the need for care as they filled the bombs, bullets, shells and detonators, emphasising the burden of guilt should they become careless and kill not just themselves, but others.

  It was the relish with which he said this each time that was unnerving, and summed up the strange darkness in the man, or that’s how Mrs Oborne had put it in the canteen a couple of days ago.

  ‘Strange darkness?’ Maisie had reared up. ‘He’s a bliddy bully, that’s what he is. Shoved past me on our way to the section last week. Whack went his elbow and straight into the wall went I, and he meant to an’ all.’

  Valerie had said, ‘He don’t like women, he really don’t, and he’s even worse since his wife walked out. Aye, she took a taxi from Sledgeford to Lord knows where a year or so back. Told the cabby to get the fee from the “auld bugger” an’ all.’

  Maisie had shot back, ‘Good bliddy luck to her, and I bet the “auld bugger” didn’t tip him.’ The whole table had burst out laughing.

  Mr Swinton was now running through the shift system: one week on the fore shift, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., then the aft shift, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., and after that the night shift, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., though these were open to change, depending on circumstances, and what’s more, change without warning. If more hours were needed, then they were needed. He ended on the declaration about mistakes, as per usual. ‘Even a seemingly small mistake could mek you the murderers of your friends and colleagues, splattering ’em about the walls, legs and arms all over the bliddy place, but more’n that, you could also be responsible for our defeat. Errors must not be hidden, they must be declared, or worse damage could ensue.’

  With that, Fran presumed he had finished, but he started again from the beginning as though they were deaf, or stupid, or was he just trying to make them late on shift and therefore lose money? She wouldn’t put it past him. She looked at the floor and tuned him out, but that was just as bad because all she could think about was Stan returning to the pit, to danger, to a bad bliddy chest, to Da’s cruel disappointment. She hated the damned war, hated it more than she had hated anything in her life.

  ‘I don’t see your hand being raised, Miss Frances Hall. Too clever by half, are you? Or too lazy?’ Mr Swinton was staring at her, his hands back in his pockets, writhing.

  Sarah nudged her, raising her eyebrows to warn her not to inflame the man who had already shown many times since they’d begun here that he harboured a grudge against the sister of Stanhope Hall. But Fran couldn’t stop herself and waved her hand in a deliberately languid way, answering, ‘So sorry, Mr Swinton. I was just mulling your words of wisdom, so compelling were they.’

  There, she thought, stuff that in your pocket and pound it to death. Sarah rolled her eyes, and smothered a grin.

  Swinton bawled, ‘Compelling, eh? Showing off, eh, and reminding us that your white-collared personage should really be in the office. Or maybe university, like that brother of yours.’

  Sarah and Beth, who stood behind Franny, hissed, ‘No, don’t rise to him, Fran.’

  Fran shook her head, as though she was shaking off their warning, because today she’d had more than enough of men being idiots. ‘Not at all, Mr Swinton. I think safety is a very serious business. I am not desirous of causing an accident, of that let me emphatically assure you.’

  Now Sarah dug her elbow into Fran’s ribs while Fran watched Swinton’s complexion reach an alarming red. She couldn’t give a monkey’s, quite frankly. His digs about Stan had been going on for too long. Everything was just going on too ruddy long, and how dare Stan dump the breaking of his news onto her? How dare her da be so cross with her – as he would be – when she told him? How dare the buyer of her mam’s proggy rugs short-change Mam and her friends? And how bliddy dare this wretched bully go on day after day making all their lives a misery?

  Swinton looked at the new girl now, who still stood next to Fran. ‘You and Miss Cartwright should get on right well. Both know long words, so you can teach us, can’t you? Bring us up to scratch … Do you desirous – I mean, are you desirous of keeping your fellows safe, Miss Cartwright? Is that included in your plans at all?’

  The girl standing next to Fran said quietly, in a posh southern voice, ‘I just want to help the war effort, Mr Swinton, that’s all, and this is where I was sent. Though I confess I hoped I was destined for the office, for I’m not used to … well, this.’

  Fran winced. The girl had opened the door to a Swinton put-down, never mind ruffled a few feathers amongst the Factory girls, including her.

  Swinton stood on his toes again. ‘So, you’re saying it’s not where you want to be?’

  The girl kept calm, though Fran could see her hands making fists in her pockets now – was it catching?

  ‘If it’s where I can help the war effort, then this is where I want to be.’

  All the other women were torn between the worry that as the clock ticked towards five fifty-five they would be late to their workshop and lose fifteen minutes’ worth of wages, and the rat-a-tat of the row brewing between the hated Swinton, Fran, who was one of their own, and Miss Cartwright, who was not, and who had seemed to look down on them. Though perhaps not, for with her final riposte she had recovered what had probably just been a slip of the tongue.

  Fran was looking from Swinton to the phalanx of women, and suddenly Swinton looked tired and old and Fran felt mean and spiteful. What she’d done to Swinton was bullying too, mocking someone’s limitations. Her mam would be angry and tell her it wasn’t funny or nice. What’s more, she’d be right.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Swinton. You’re reet, I was showing off, being silly,’ Fran said.

  At that moment Miss Ellington and Mrs Raydon, the security officers, entered. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Mr Swinton, but we were waiting for your knock to let us know we could begin our spot check. It would appear that the timetable has slipped and the girls are about to be late for their shift?’

  Miss Ellington, the senior of the two women, turned to the girls. ‘But don’t fret, we’ll hurry, and besides, your pay won’t be docked. We saw you arrive at the correct time.’

  A wave of relief ran through the room and then someone said, ‘Thank heavens for that. I felt my life draining out of t’bottom of me feet these last ten minutes. Would’ve been worse to pay for the bleedin’ privilege.’

  Mr Swinton’s colour rose further. Perhaps he’ll explode, thought Fran, almost regretting her apology since he was looking at her with such venom. So, would his explosion go down as an accident or self-induced? At least it would only hurt him, though there’d be a ton of bile to mop up. Davey, though, would say that it wouldn’t matter if he did explode, because it would only be hot air that swept the room.

  ‘Let it go now, Fran,’ Sarah whispered, ‘or he’ll be even worse to you, especially when he hears Stan’s coming back.’

  The smaller of the women, Mrs Raydon, asked the girls if anyone was still wearing nylon or silk. Fat chance in this neck of the woods, thought Fran. Miss Ellington added, ‘We have to ask as it was reported by the gate that one of you was, and might not know to remove them. We don’t want any static to set off the explosives, do we, girls?’

  Someone now said, as they usually did, ‘No, Miss Ellington, too right we don’t, but we’d like some nylons for afterwards.’ It was a sort of good-luck charm, and made everyone but Mr Swinton smile. Miss Cartright put up her hand. ‘I was wearing them, but they’re in my coat pocket now.’

  The women looked at one another. Sarah whispered, ‘Stockings?’

  Fran shrugged, after all they might be the girl’s only pair and as it was her first day she thought she should be smart.

  Mrs Raydon and Miss Ellington began checking each girl for metal, and asking if they were wearing cotton underclothes before passing them through the doors into the corridor and their ‘work stations’. As the security officers drew nearer, Fran smiled at Miss Cartwright, who smiled back.

  ‘My name’s Amelia Cartwright.’

  As Amelia turned around
, Fran saw a glint in her hair. ‘Duck down,’ she whispered. ‘Pretend to scratch your foot.’

  Puzzled, Amelia did just that and Fran snatched the hairpin out. It could have killed her, as well as her fellow workers, if it had fallen and created a spark around the explosives, if that’s where she was working, though as a new girl she’d probably only be in sewing. Fran palmed it. ‘Get up,’ she hissed as the women came nearer. ‘Don’t give Swinton an excuse to make a do of anything.’

  Fran stepped back, seeing Swinton watching, and scratched her upper arm, tossing the grip towards one of the individual envelopes on the bench and praying it landed near one. It did. Swinton was approaching, pushing through the women. He reached her. Fran stared ahead and shoved her hands in her pockets.

  ‘You need to check Frances Hall’s overall pockets. She’s just taken something from Miss Cartwright’s hair,’ Swinton shouted to one of the women.

  Fran stared from him to Miss Ellington. ‘It was fluff. Harmless but unattractive.’

  Miss Ellington came across to Fran, and stood in front of her, her pale blue eyes expressionless. ‘May I see?’

  Fran had already run her fingernail along the pocket’s seam and now drew out the fluff that seemed to breed overnight.

  ‘Harmless,’ Miss Ellington snapped, and turned away. But then, holding her notepad beneath her handless left arm, she spun round to address Amelia. ‘There is no quarter given for a mistake such as the one Mr Swinton thought you had made if you had left this room and reached any active area. If that had happened, you could have been responsible for death and disaster. So remember, had that been the case you would have been escorted off the premises and never allowed near an armaments factory again, or face an even worse penalty. And the same goes for you, Miss Hall.’

  She addressed everyone now. ‘However, I will remind you that it is not just up to the security officers or the foremen, it is up to you to check, check and check again whilst in the changing rooms, not just yourselves but your fellow workers. Is that not so, Mr Swinton? So anyone finding and removing such an article would be doing us all a favour – correct, Mr Swinton? What’s more, that “someone” should be confident enough to do it without fear, don’t you agree, and not receive a warning? After all, the thrust of your lecture is that mistakes must not be hidden.’