Annie Groves - As Time Goes By

There was just enough light for her to see how disreputable he looked, even if he was in uniform. He needed a shave, and his dark hair looked in need of a cut, his face was streaked with dirt and the hand he had placed over her mouth smelled of dirt and oil.

He was looking at his watch with a fierce concentration that made Sam wonder if he was some kind of madman. If so, he was soon going to learn that she could look after herself. All she was waiting for was the right opportunity to raise her knee and use it in the way her elder brother had taught her would deter any overeager male. He was leaning intimately into her now, his hand still covering her mouth.

She could feel his breath against her ear, as he mouthed quietly, ‘I hope you know how to run.’

What did that mean? She looked up at him, intending to tell him what she thought of him but the look in his eyes made it clear that his words were not intended as some kind of chat-up line. Army rules and regulations must have been instilled in her more than she had known, she recognised as she nodded obediently.

‘Good,’ said the man in a soft whisper. ‘So when I say move, you get to your feet and you run and you do not stop. There’s a two-thousand-pound unexploded bomb in that crater, and all it could take to set it off is being hit by one of these bricks. Savvy?’

Knowing now not only that he was completely serious, but also the danger they were in, all thoughts of kneeing him in the groin faded as Sam nodded a second time.

‘We’ve got ten more seconds. If we survive those without it going off, then we’ve got two minutes to get clear.’

At three and nearly two years old respectively, Sally’s sons weren’t old enough to be aware of the dark times they were living through, and as usual when Doris let her in and then led the way to her cosy parlour, both Tommy and Harry hurled themselves at her, wrapping their small arms around her knees.

‘Have you two been good boys for Auntie Doris then?’ Sally asked them lovingly as she kneeled down to hug and kiss them.

‘Yeth,’ Harry lisped adorably, whilst Tommy nodded firmly.

‘It really is good of you to have them for me, Doris,’ Sally thanked Molly’s mother-in-law gratefully.

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way. As fond of your pair of young scamps as if they were me own grandchildren, I am,’ Doris Brookes assured Sally affectionately. ‘I’ve given them their tea. Now don’t you go saying anything,’ she warned Sally firmly. ‘I had a bit extra on account of me being on duty at the hospital these last few nights and eating there. I’ve given our Lillibet her tea as well,’ she added, nodding in the direction of Molly’s stepdaughter and niece.

‘I’m sorry I’m a bit later than I said. I managed to call in at the chemist’s, though, and I’ve collected all the kiddies’ orange juice and cod liver oil allowances. Here’s Molly’s.’ Sally handed over the bottles, along with the necessary stamped ration books.

‘Lillibet will really thank you for that,’ Doris laughed. ‘She hates that cod liver oil.’

‘Tommy’s the same,’ Sally agreed. ‘But I tell him he won’t grow up big and strong like his dad if he doesn’t have it.’

‘Well, Dr Ross that’s to replace old Dr Jennings would certainly agree with you there. He was up at the hospital yesterday and I heard him saying how important it was for kiddies to have it.’

‘What’s he like?’ Sally asked. ‘Only he’s going to have his work cut out if he’s to be as well thought of as Dr Jennings.’

‘You’re right there, Sally. A good man, was Dr Jennings. Thought a lot of him, folks round here did. This new doctor’s a lot younger than I expected. A Scot he is, an’ all, and a bit what they call “dour”, you know: doesn’t say much and looks a bit down in the mouth. He’s moving into Dr Jennings’s old house, of course, since he’s taking over the practice, but I don’t know if we’re going to see him looking after us like Dr Jennings did. I remember Dr Jennings telling me once when my Frank was little, and I’d bin crying me eyes out on account of him being poorly and me not being able to afford to have a doctor round, that I wasn’t to worry because he always charged them patients wot were a bit better off a little bit more so that he could do right by them as didn’t have enough to pay him to come out. Ever so good like that, he was. That’s why everyone loved him so much. There’s many a mother round here has a lot to thank him for, and I can’t help wishing that the old doctor had stayed on until after Molly has had her baby.’

‘I remember when Harry was a few months old how he had that terrible chest and I was worried sick. Came out to him straight away, Dr Jennings did, and wouldn’t take a penny,’ Sally agreed, looking lovingly at her two sons.

Like many boys, they were inclined to be a bit too adventurous at times, but they were loving little lads as well as stout-hearted. They were her pride and joy, and woe betide anyone who ever said a word against them. There was nothing she would not do to keep them safe and give them the very best that she could.

‘Don’t you go tempting fate now saying that,’ Doris warned her, breaking off as the back door opened and her daughter-in-law, Molly, called out a cheerful greeting.

‘My, Sally, you look glam,’ she announced.

Sally pulled a small face. ‘I’ve just bin down the Grafton, practising with the Waltonettes.’

‘You’ve got a lovely voice, Sally,’ Doris joined in. ‘If you was to ask me I’d say there’s not many about that can sing as sweet as you can. I was listening to you in church the other Sunday. Fair lifted me heart, it did, to hear you.’

‘Frank’s mam’s right, Sally, you have got a lovely voice,’ Molly reiterated ten minutes later as they walked down the Close together at a pace slow enough to accommodate Molly’s advancing pregnancy. Sally was pushing Harry in the pushchair she had swapped her pram for, and Tommy walking sturdily alongside them, restrained by the reins Sally was keeping a firm hold of. ‘You could be one of them girl singers wi’ them bands that tour the munitions factories and go on the wireless, and no mistake.’

‘No, I couldn’t, Molly, because that’d mean travelling around a bit and I couldn’t leave my two little ’uns. It’s bad enough as it is, but I can’t afford not to work, and I’d have to anyway just as soon as Tommy reaches five, and he’s three now.’ Sally knew she sounded defensive, but she couldn’t even tell Molly, her closest friend, about the shameful secret that woke her up in the night and set her heart pounding with sick dread.

‘Five – that’s another two years away yet, Sally. I hope this war’s over before then.’

‘Don’t we all, but it doesn’t much look like being, does it?’ Sally was relieved the conversation had moved away from the subject of her work. ‘I reckon if it was about to be over then we wouldn’t be having all them Americans pouring into the country, would we?’

‘No, you’re right,’ Molly agreed. ‘My Frank was saying that there’s bin a fair bit of trouble in some of the pubs between the Americans and the British servicemen, fights and that.’

Sally bent her head ostensibly to check on Tommy’s reins but in reality to conceal her expression from her friend. However, as though she had guessed what she was feeling, Molly apologised immediately.

‘Oh, Sally, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Me and my big mouth, going on about my Frank when you still haven’t heard anything from your Ronnie.’

She’d always had a soft heart, had Molly, and always been ready to put others first, Sally knew. ‘It’s all right, Molly. After all, it’s not your Frank’s fault that he’s on home duties whilst my Ronnie got posted overseas.’ Sides, your Frank’s got that bad hand of his and there’s many that would have just sat back and let others get on wi’ doing their duty for them, not like your Frank, who practically begged the barracks to find him some work. Your Frank’s a good man – Ronnie always said so. Do you remember when Frank and Johnny Everton first joined up and they was asking my Ronnie what it was like to be in the army on account of him already being there?’