Keep the Home Fires Burning (35 page)

Sarah knew that Mary Ellen was right. Like the twins and Tony, she and Richard had been raised in the garden, and when they had gone to Polly’s and there was only the street to play in, the clamour those children made and the lack of restraint in
much of their play had unnerved her a little. Many of the people she was working with now were like grown-up versions of those children.

‘You haven’t had the corners knocked off you, that’s your trouble,’ Mary Ellen went on knowledgeably. ‘You don’t have to take no notice of what they say at work. They don’t mean owt. They’re just having you on, having a laugh. You answer in like vein.’

Sarah, however, still thought their ways were alien to her own and, whatever Mary Ellen said, she couldn’t curse and swear the way they did. But after talking her mother into letting her go into the munitions in the first place, how could she go to her mother now and say she had made a grave mistake? She couldn’t, and she knew it, so she tried to make the best of it.

Sarah had been there almost three weeks when, leaving the factory one day, one of the women at the front of the queue shouted back, ‘Some lucky lass has got a handsome soldier waiting for them.’

There was a chorus of laughter at that, and they edged further forward and then Mary Ellen, a little ahead of Sarah, suddenly said, ‘Good God, it’s Sam.’

Sarah stood on tiptoe to see, and when her eyes met Sam’s, she felt her knees go weak. However, when she emerged through the factory gate she saw Sam had his arm in a sling.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘And what on earth have you been doing with yourself?’

Sam laughed. ‘Well, I’d like to say that I was sporting a war wound, but I’m afraid that I crocked my arm up playing football.’

‘Oh, Sam,’ Sarah said. ‘And what are you doing here?’

‘I came to meet you, what else?’

Mary Ellen noticed that while he included her in that answer, he really only had eyes for Sarah and she for him. She remembered her mother saying that Sarah had had a fancy for Sam the first time she had seen him, but she had been little more than a child then. Now, unless she was very much mistaken, it looked as if that attraction was still there. And who was she to get in the way of true love?

‘I’ll have to go,’ she said. ‘Dad will be waiting.’

‘Oh, yes, of course …’ Sarah said.

‘Not you,’ Mary Ellen said. ‘You and Sam must have plenty to talk about.’

‘Oh, but–’

‘Come on, Sarah,’ Mary Ellen said. ‘Haven’t you heard the expression “three’s a crowd”?’

Sarah was glad of the blackout because she felt the heat flood her face and knew that she would be blushing. ‘S all right, I’ll square it with Dad,’ Mary Ellen said, and she melted into the night, leaving Sarah and Sam alone.

‘I suppose you usually go home together?’ Sam said.

‘Yes, and Uncle Pat waits for us at the tram station. It’s only just round the corner.’

‘So shall we make for the tram then?’ Sam said. ‘Or we could walk – it’s really no distance? But then what am I saying? You’ve had a heavy day at the factory so we’ll take the tram.’

But Sarah felt as light as air and could think of nothing nicer than walking home with Sam in the concealing dark, so she said, ‘No, really, I’m fine and I’d like to walk. The night is a fine one, for all it’s cold.’

‘Then shall we link arms and be warmer as we walk?’ Sam said. ‘And thank God that it was my left arm that I damaged.’ He took Sarah’s arm as he spoke and they walked through the quiet and darkened streets.

‘What did you do to damage your arm?’ she asked.

‘Oh, it was nothing much,’ Sam said. ‘One of the opposing team tripped me up and then fell on top of me, and my arm was twisted awkwardly underneath me. I’ve cracked a bone in it.’

‘It must have been sore.’

‘I haven’t come all this way to talk about my arm,’ Sam said. ‘And the first thing I must say is how sorry I was to hear about Tony. I wrote to your mother at the time because when Peggy wrote to tell me I was very upset. He was always so full of life.’

Sarah nodded. ‘He was. And we are getting over it now, because we must, but at home it’s always like someone is missing.’

‘I really do understand that,’ Sam said.

‘And now your turn,’ Sarah said. ‘I suppose you’ve been given a spot of leave because of your arm.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam said. ‘Seeing that it was my left arm they put me on clerical duties for a bit. I did it more than three weeks ago. Now, they’ve told me to come home until I have the plaster off, a spot of physio, and then I’ll be back into active service again.’

‘I bet Peggy was thrilled to see you,’ Sarah said, and then suddenly stopped. ‘She does know, I suppose?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Sam said. ‘I stopped by the forge and was able to have a word. Your mom knows too because I went there, and they all know that I was coming to meet you from work.’

‘And I am pleased to see you,’ Sarah said. ‘But why did you come to meet me?’

‘Well, when I met you last time, you were a young girl,’ Sam said. ‘But I thought of you a fair bit and I wanted to see you grown up to the grand old age of sixteen.’

‘And what do you find?’ Sarah asked with a smile.

‘That you are not so different at all except maybe more mature, and you have changed your job to one in a munitions factory.’

Sarah sighed. ‘Yeah, I have.’

‘And why the sigh?’

‘To tell you the truth,’ Sarah said, ‘I think I’ve made a dreadful mistake.’

‘Why’s that? Is the work hard?’

‘No, though it is boring,’ Sarah said. ‘But it isn’t the work, it’s some of the people I work with.’ She recounted some concerns that she’d already spoken to her cousin about.

Sam listened without interrupting and eventually Sarah finished, ‘I suppose you think me some sort of dreadful snob.’

‘Not at all,’ Sam said. ‘Nor do I think that you’ve made a mistake. You’re doing something the like of which you’ve never done before with the sort of people that you’ve never worked with before, and it will take time to adapt. I felt much the same about some of the men I shared a billet with when I first went into the army. They were all so different from me and I had thought we would never get on.’

‘But you did?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Sam said. ‘I persevered and now I’m the best of friends with most of them.’

‘And you think that’s what I must do?’

‘I think you should not be so hard on yourself. Just take each day as it comes and in time everything will slip into place. You may find the loudest and most raucous of those woman really has a heart of gold.’

Sam’s words made Sarah feel a lot better and she decided to double her efforts to get on better with the women she was working with.

‘It’s lovely to have someone to talk it over with,’ she said. ‘I made such a fuss about going into the
munitions in the first place, I really feel I can talk to no one at home now about any doubts I might have.’

‘You can write and moan to me, if it helps.’

‘Write to you!’ Sarah repeated.

‘Would you mind?’

‘No, I don’t suppose so,’ Sarah said. ‘I mean, I write to Dad and I will to Richard next year, so I suppose I could write to you too.’

‘We love getting letters,’ Sam said. ‘Lets us know that we’re not forgotten back home. I mean, Peg writes, and the parents – well, my mom really – and sometimes Peter and Daisy scribble a line or two on the bottom of the letter, but some of the men have three or four women writing to them as well.’

‘Why don’t you?’

‘I don’t want that,’ Sam said. ‘But I would like one Sarah Whittaker to write to me.’ And then he added sardonically, ‘If she would be so kind.’

Sarah had no time to answer, for the twins had been watching for them, and they were barely on the path before Magda had the door wrenched open and the two of them launched themselves at Sam.

‘Where have you been?’ Magda demanded. ‘We’ve been waiting ages. Our cousin Jack is here to see you as well.’

Sam stayed another two days. He met Sarah every day as she left the factory and they walked home and talked of all and sundry. In fact, by the third
day Sarah thought that she knew more about Sam that she had ever known about anyone, and she had confided things to him about her hopes and dreams for the future that she had never given voice to before. Sam listened and never made fun of her. She was very aware of him walking close beside her, which caused her heart to hammer against her ribs so much that she was surprised Sam couldn’t hear it. When he linked her arm as they walked along she felt herself tremble all over.

Apart from walking arm in arm Sam never touched her in any other way, though Sarah wouldn’t have minded at all if he had. She couldn’t say this, of course, because it would be very unseemly, but she was often a little disappointed when they reached home. Had Sarah been able to see into Sam’s heart, however, she would have seen how hard he battled with himself not to take their tentative and budding relationship any further.

The way they had talked together as they walked home from the munitions factory until they were as easy with one another as if they were lifelong friends, had convinced Sam that he would have loved to get to know Sarah better, but with the war raging all around them – a war that he would soon be back in the thick of – he felt he had no right to make advances to Sarah in the few days he had here. And on such a short acquaintance he could hardly ask her to wait for him, to be his girl, and so however much he wanted to hold Sarah closer and kiss those luscious lips, he
wouldn’t let himself. She had agreed to write and that was all he was prepared to expect of her.

Once they reached the house the family would claim Sam’s attention, the twins in particular, and though he could no longer do magic tricks with one arm immobilised, he could play most other games and he never seemed to mind being commandered in this way. On his last evening he took Sarah to see
The Philadelphia Story,
though the invitation was extended to Peggy and Violet too. As Sarah sat beside Sam, he made no move to drape an arm around her shoulders, even in a casual way, nor did he take advantage of the darkness of the cinema to hold her hand.

That night Sarah lay in bed and faced the fact that however much she thought of Sam, he definitely didn’t feel the same, and she had to accept that. He saw her as a friend and that was all. Her letters to him had to be from one friend to another. This impression was compounded the following morning when he drew Sarah into his arms to say goodbye: his hug was like anyone might give to a friend he was fond of.

That evening Sarah told her mother that Sam had asked her to write to him.

‘And are you going to?’ Marion asked.

‘I said I would,’ Sarah said. ‘What do you think?’

Marion thought about it. She knew Sam to be a decent young man and she knew Sarah thought a lot of him when she had seen him first, and still more than just liked him, if she was any judge.
However, she was sixteen and maturing in a world with few young men about so there was little chance for her to have any sort of normal life when she would get to know boys in a more natural way. So Marion could see no harm in their exchanging a few letters, and that’s what she told Sarah.

Sarah found that Sam had been right: accepting her work colleagues for the way they were, and doing her best to join in with the banter seemed to make the work easier to cope with. She wrote and told him this. She found it was lovely to write to Sam because she felt she could tell him anything and it was a great help to her to have a friend like that.

Towards the end of November, Sarah had been working at the munitions factory almost eight weeks. At the very end of their shift a few of woman were approached by Mr Baxter, the big boss, who asked them if they would be willing to work in another area on a different job.

Sarah wasn’t sure, but Mary Ellen said she had worked long enough at the same thing and Sarah could see her point. She was bored after only a few weeks and she’d hate the thought of doing that job for years and years. When the boss said their wages would rise by five shillings a week,
that clinched it for Mary Ellen, and so Sarah volunteered too.

They started the following Monday morning and this time they were sent to an area to the side of the main factory. They hadn’t been aware that there was any sort of munitions work going on there because the building was a sort of large semi-underground shed so well camouflaged with grass growing on the roofs and sides that if Sarah had taken any notice at all she would have thought that it was a grassy hillock. She was quite surprised when, once down the steps, it opened up to quite a sizeable area. When Mr Baxter told them all they would be making trench mortar bombs down there, Sarah and Mary Ellen’s mouths dropped open for neither had they thought they would be put on jobs like that.

But first they were taken to the cloakroom, where brand-new navy-blue boiler suits were ready for them, made for women. ‘Look how fitted they are,’ Mary Ellen said, spinning around in front of Sarah. ‘They give us a waistline and a bust.’

Everyone saw that for themselves. Even Sarah thought the boiler suits did look quite fetching, and it was nice to wear new clothes and not think half a dozen or more people had worn them before you.

‘I don’t go a bundle on these bloody turbans, though,’ Mary Ellen said, pulling hers over her tousled curls. ‘How about you?’

Sarah slipped her turban on too, and wrinkled
her nose as she looked in the mirror. ‘They’re not very flattering, are they? But then I suppose they’re meant to be functional, and at least it keeps the hair in place, especially when we’re not allowed to wear grips.

‘Yeah, and I reckon it’s going to be a lot more dodgy here,’ Phoebe said. ‘Have you seen the shoes we’ve got to wear?’

One of the women picked up a shoe and exclaimed. ‘Hey, they’ve got steel toecaps!’

‘My point exactly,’ Phoebe said.

‘Well, I suppose they know what they’re doing,’ Mary Ellen said uncertainly.

‘Let’s hope so,’ another woman called out. ‘Let’s just worry about getting the job done and picking up a big fat wage packet at the end of the week.’