Elsie Sees It Through

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

BIRMINGHAM, WEDNESDAY 28 JULY 1943

The house is semi-detached with two bay windows, one up and one down. It is an almost-new house, built in 1939, just before the outbreak of war. In the upstairs front bedroom, the one with the upper bay window, a young man is putting on his army uniform. He is standing in the master bedroom of the house. It is the room that his parents planned to occupy when they bought the house early in 1940 and would have done if it had not been for the garden. The young man’s mother loves the garden. From the rear, slightly smaller bedroom, she has a good view of it. The garden is long and rather narrow and affords a view of allotments in the distance where the young man’s father now spends his rare leisure time. He is vigorously growing vegetables of all sorts in answer to government pleas to Dig for Victory.

The young man, not so young, really, as his father points out, has just celebrated his 32nd birthday. Yesterday. His leave is nearly over and he must return to his unit. Although not due back until midnight, he has decided to leave early and spend part of the day in London. As a man alone on leave from the army, he has found it difficult to occupy himself. His friends are all away and he has no girlfriend. His father and mother try to engage him in conversation frequently, but he finds that he has little to talk to them about. His relationship with his father is often difficult. His father is a strong, sinewy man who spends most of his life on the assembly line at the Austin Motor works at Longbridge, now making aero parts for the war effort. He works long hours and often volunteers for extra shifts and earns good money. Enough to buy this new house on mortgage and own his own small Austin Seven car. Brian, his son, thinks he has little in common with him and takes after his mother, an altogether quieter and gentler creature.

Brian puts on his army shirt, a coarse-grained garment and then puts on his battledress tunic. The tunic has one stripe on each sleeve, denoting his rank of lance corporal. He goes over to the mirror in his wardrobe and starts to comb his big shock of red hair that sticks up somewhat at the front. Normally it looks good but now, with the back and sides of his head cut noticeably short in army-regulation mode, it appears somewhat incongruous. He frowns and then pulls a face at the mirror. His face is soft, the eyes blue, his expression, when not frowning, is pleasant, not unlike his mother but masculine. He picks up his forage cap and walks out of the bedroom and goes downstairs to the kitchen.

“I’ve made you a coffee, Brian,” his mother says, smiling. “Get it down you.”

He nods, smiles, and thanks her as he sits down at the kitchen table. His father, looking grizzled and unshaven and still in just his vest and trousers, glowers at him. “What time is your train?” he asks.

“Half ten,” Brian answers briefly, not looking at his father.

“Are you ready to go?”

“Well, you’re not,” his mother says, addressing his father and, before he can reply, adds: “Best get yourself tidy. Now.”

His father grunts, clears his throat and pushes back his chair, noisily scraping the kitchen tiles. He goes out of the room, saying, “I won’t take a minute,” and his mother sits down at the kitchen table. She takes a sip of coffee from her half-finished mug. Brian asks what is wrong with his dad as he takes his first sip of hot coffee.

“Oh, he’s just fretting at losing half a day’s pay,” she replies. “Take no notice. He spends most of his life at that plant.”

“I didn’t ask him to take me to the station,” he says. “I could easily get the bus.”

“Your dad can take you,” she says firmly. “Do him good to get away from that works.”

She asks him if he has enjoyed his leave. He nods brightly but she shows concern that he hasn’t done much. He seems to have spent most of his time in his bedroom or down at the pub.

“There’s not much to do, Mum,” he tells her. “All my mates are away in the army or RAF. We never seem to coincide when we’re on leave.”

“You should get yourself a girl, Brian,” she murmurs wistfully. “Bright lad like you.”

“You don’t just go and get a girl,” he growls irritably, “Like picking up a loaf at the bakers. And I’m no longer a lad.”

“No, you’re not,” she agrees. “Time marches on.”

It does indeed and he finds his attention drawn to the big clock on the wall, ticking away the seconds steadily. It is not time to move just yet, so he takes out his packet of cigarettes and offers one to his mother, who shakes her head. He lights one himself and sends blue smoke curling towards the ceiling. When his father reappears, he has shaved and fitted himself into a tight dark-blue suit. “Time to make a move,” his father growls irritably.

“Let him finish his cigarette, George,” his mother says, “for goodness’ sake.”

When he walks out to the little Austin Seven parked at the kerbside, he turns and waves goodbye to his mother who is clearly fighting back the tears. His father is already in the car, starting the engine. When the car starts to move, he is silent at first, thinking that he won’t be sorry to get back to the barracks. He has been bored on leave with no mates around and only his parents for company. He suddenly becomes aware that his father is telling him, in a loud gruff voice, that he should have been getting out and about more on leave and not just been cooped up in his bedroom most of the time.

“There wasn’t much I could do,” he points out.

“You could’ve come down my works club. We got cheap beer, darts, bar billiards and all sorts.”

“Not really, Dad,” he says, smiling. “Not my sort of thing at all.”

His answer seems to irritate his father, almost to make him angry. “You’re an ungrateful bugger, you,” the older man says. “No matter what anybody tries to do for you. And you’re incredibly lucky, do you realise that? I tried everything to get back into army uniform, but they wouldn’t take me.”

“You’re too old, Dad,” Brian replies, smiling. “But you did your bit in the first war.”

“Too right I b****y did. And I could show all those young raw recruits a thing or two today.”

Brian shakes his head and lapses into silence. Sergeant Crawford is reliving his past glories in the Great War. And bitterly resents the fact that they won’t let him join in this one. He is forever talking about those days, glorifying them; reliving his great adventures as though it was all a marvellous time and not the great tragedy that it truly was.

At New Street Station, it is all hustle and bustle. People are crowding into the station entrance, mostly in uniform, some carrying kitbags, all seeming to be in a hurry. Some women are bidding tearful goodbyes to their men near the entrance, reluctant to go into the station for the final farewell. For some, it will be a last farewell. Their men returning to their units, to go to war. Some, at home, will die in air raids although the bombing has become less and less this year. Brian gets out of the car with his father, and they shake hands. He says goodbye and asks his father to take good care of his mother.

“Never mind that you, cheeky bugger,” his father growls. “Get some service in and don’t come back next leave a lance-jack. Get some b****y stripes on your sleeve.”

On the platform, Brian is trying to find a small space where he can feel free of bodies all around him. The platform is absolutely crammed with men and women, kitbags, and suitcases. Most are in uniform of one sort or another. Looking up and down the platform, Brian thinks it will be almost impossible to get a seat on the train to London. Too many people on the move, he thinks, forgetting for the moment that he is one of them. He decides he would like something sweet on the journey. He would love a Mars bar, one of his favourite confections, with its thick milk chocolate, caramel layer, and nougat filling. They are available only in the south of the country now, though, since the outbreak of war. Sharps the word for toffee, he recites under his breath as he advances, pushing towards the kiosk. There is a chocolate machine with Nestlé bars available, but he decides against and goes on and buys a bag of toffee.

His decision to walk up to the top of the platform pays off. As the big locomotive comes steaming in, black smoke billowing from the funnel and a grinding noise as the train shudders to a halt, he is lucky enough to reach the door before anybody less agile. He is in swiftly and, although the corridor is crammed with soldiers and airmen and a well-built woman in her fifties, he manages to squeeze into the middle of a seat with four other people already in position. Soon he is on his way with everybody around him looking hot and uncomfortable. As the train pulls out of New Street Station, he gazes out of the window at the hoardings advertising Bile Beans and Bovril. Some combination, that.

As the train gathers noisy, rattling momentum, he stares straight ahead, avoiding the eyes of passengers facing him, as far as possible and then looks upwards. He notes the evil eye of the Squander Bug in a panel advertisement just under the luggage rack and begins thinking about getting back to camp later that evening. He feels happy about it and, although he does not take naturally to the regimentation and strict discipline of service life, he is beginning to make and maintain new friendships at camp. He thinks back to his last conversation with his mother before leaving and acknowledges to himself that she is right. He should have a girlfriend, it is nearly four years since his last one ended it. But you don’t pick a girl out of thin air or bump into one in the street, do you? And there are only the dance halls now, which he does not like. Where else would you look?

There are only two women in the carriage, the stocky middle-aged and rather matronly figure he saw when entering the carriage, who now sits opposite him, and a small WAAF girl in the corner seat by the window who has had her face in a book since pulling out of New Street. Brian glances at her in her smart air-force-blue uniform but realises she is most likely not even aware of his existence. She has only looked up three times to the best of his belief since leaving the station and that to glance briefly out of the window and straight back to her book. A sailor and a civilian in a faded brown suit both light up cigarettes simultaneously and a cloud of blue smoke fills the carriage. The woman opposite coughs loudly and a man in the far corner seat rises silently, without a word to anybody, and pulls down the strap far enough to allow fresh air in from the window.

At Euston Station, the rush is on to get out of the carriages and get clear of the platform, out to the street or the Underground trains. Brian is in no great hurry; he has the rest of the afternoon to himself, he reflects as he takes his time to move out of the carriage and waits for the great surge of people to disperse. Smoke and steam from the engines hang in sulphurous patches in the air. Finally, he joins the stragglers at the end of the train and walks leisurely along and out of the station. He walks down toward the high, sooty black pillars of the great Doric arches that form the impressive entrance to Euston Station. He stops, takes out a cigarette and lights it then stands there looking out towards the road.

When he begins to walk along the Marylebone Road, he is aware that the day has become hot, dull, and dusty. A large lorry rumbles past followed by an army armoured vehicle, escorted by two military guards on motor cycles. The noise of traffic is deafening for a moment. There are not so many people about now as it is the lunch hour; a few soldiers and airmen, some civilians and one or two police officers. He is aware of the artefacts of war in London all around him. The sandbags outside buildings, the Emergency Water Supply signs and the Dig for Victory and Make Do and Mend posters. He is alone and lonely again but on balance, he feels, better off. He can walk around and explore London, seek diversion or entertainment, and avoid sitting with his mother as she asks questions he would prefer not to answer.

It is quiet outside Madam Tussauds as he walks past. At Baker Street, he toys with the idea of spending an hour in the Monseigneur News Theatre but decides that newsreels about battles raging alleviated with a couple of cartoons would not suit his present mood. He turns around and begins to walk, briskly, in the direction he has come from. At Great Portland Street, he turns right and begins to head off in the direction of theatreland but still aimlessly with no clear idea of where he is heading or what he plans to do. He walks past a canteen and has only gone a few short paces when it occurs to him that a cup of tea might be a good idea at this point. He turns around and walks back in the direction he has come from.