When the Lights Go on Again (3 page)

‘Boy, oh boy, it smells good in here,’ one of them remarked enthusiastically, breathing in appreciatively. ‘Coffee, doughnuts and hamburgers, Home sweet American Home.’

They’d arrived on one of the special trains put on to ferry American servicemen from their bases into London for their weekends off, and they were keen to let Katie know how they planned to spend their weekend.

‘Girls, girls and more girls – that’s what we want, isn’t it, guys?’ the one who was obviously the leader informed Katie, looking round at the others.

‘Sure is,’ they agreed in unison.

‘I’m afraid we can’t help you there,’ Katie responded lightly, ‘but if you’d like a map of London, or directions to anywhere…’

‘Yeah, we’ll have some directions to the nearest cat house,’ one of the men grinned.

Katie suspected that they’d already been drinking, but she didn’t really want to get them into trouble by calling for assistance. American GIs were meant to respect Rainbow Corner as though it were their home and occupied by their mother.

‘Why don’t you boys go and get yourselves a Coke and make yourselves at home?’ Katie suggested.

‘That ain’t what we’ve got in mind,’ drawled the one who had first spoken, leaning on the counter, breathing alcohol fumes in Katie’s direction, while the others gathered round him. ‘How about obliging us yourself? We don’t mind taking it in turns, do we, guys?’

Some more men had walked in and had obviously overheard the comment. One of them – an officer, Katie guessed from the insignia on his uniform – walked over to the desk with a grim expression and announced curtly, ‘We don’t treat the kind folks, who are good enough to give up their free time to make us welcome, like that, Soldier, and I suggest you apologise to the lady right now, otherwise I’m gonna be calling the MPs.’

One look at the officer had an immediate sobering effect on the small group.

‘Yessss, sir,’ the culprit stammered as he stood up straight and saluted, a shamed-faced, ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ crossing the desk, before, to Katie’s relief, the young men disappeared at some speed, into the club.

‘Thank you for that,’ she told her rescuer.

He shook his head, his mouth tightening into a grim line.

‘You shouldn’t have had to thank me,’ he told her bluntly. ‘Do you get much of that kind of behaviour?’

‘No,’ Katie told him truthfully.

‘I’m afraid that some of these young idiots try to treat this country as though they’re an invading force, not its ally,’ the officer commented.

Katie smiled but didn’t say anything. What he had said was, after all, true.

A younger officer came hurrying in saluting her rescuer.

‘The general’s car has arrived, sir.’

‘I’ll be right with you,’ Katie’s rescuer answered him, looking back at her. ‘I’m sorry you had to
put up with those young fools,’ he told her before turning on his heel to leave the building.

‘Wow, who was he?’ the other girl on the reception desk, who had been taking her break, demanded as she reappeared just in time to see Katie’s rescuer disappearing.

‘I don’t know,’ Katie answered.

‘Looked more like he should be mixing with the top brass at the American Embassy than coming here. That was a major’s insignia he was wearing.’

It was obviously one of those nights, Katie reflected later when she arrived back at the billet she shared with four ATS girls in Cadogan Square, to find Peggy Groves, the most sensible and senior of the young women, waiting anxiously in the kitchen, twisting her engagement ring round on her finger. Katie noticed her khaki uniform skirt was looser on the waist than it had been. Thanks to rationing, they were all quite literally having to ‘pull their belts’ in.

‘I’m waiting for Gerry to come in. I’ve decided that it’s time I had a word with her about the way she’s behaving. For her own sake, not just because it reflects on all of us.’ An anxious frown was creasing Peggy’s forehead. ‘I was working late at the War Office this evening and when I got back the retired colonel from three doors down collared me to complain about what he referred to as “our goings-on”.’

Peggy lit up a cigarette and drew deeply on it, the light from the kitchen’s ugly single bulb shining on her dark auburn hair. ‘If word of
Gerry’s behaviour gets to Lord Cadogan’s ears, we could all end up looking for a new billet, and I can’t say that I would blame him. I know that Gerry’s always been a bit on the wild side and that she’s been through a hell of a lot, losing both her brothers this summer.’ Peggy gave a shudder and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘It’s the kind of news we all dread getting.’

Katie nodded. Gerry’s brothers had both been pilots with Bomber Command and everyone knew that the death rate amongst those who flew bombing missions to Germany was very high – higher than that amongst fighter pilots.

‘We’ve all tried to give her a bit of leeway and cut her some slack,’ Peggy continued. ‘If there’s one thing this war has taught me it’s not to judge others. Gerry isn’t the first girl to throw herself into living life to the full, with all that that means, following the death of someone close, and it’s not for me to stand in moral judgement on her. She’s a decent sort at heart, but she can’t keep carrying on the way she is doing, drinking too much and sleeping around with as many men as possible, coming in at all hours, and in the state she does, with torn stockings and her clothes not fastened properly.’

Katie knew what Peggy meant. They were all aware of the change the deaths of her brothers had caused in Gerry. Before, she had spoken openly about the fact that she liked a bit of fun, but now there was a desperation about her behaviour that worried them all.

‘Do you want some cocoa?’ Katie asked, going to fill the kettle.

Peggy nodded, and then frowned again as they heard someone knocking on the front door.

Without saying anything they hurried into the hallway, automatically switching off the lights as they did so, so as not to break the blackout laws.

When Peggy opened the door, Katie could see a couple of GIs supporting Gerry between them, a taxi with another GI standing beside it waiting at the kerb with its meter ticking.

‘Get a move on, you guys,’ the GI standing beside the taxi urged them. ‘We don’t want the MPs catching up with us again.’

His warning of the possible arrival of the Military Police was enough to have the two GIs let go of Gerry, who would have fallen headlong into the hallway if Katie and Peggy hadn’t caught her. She smelled of whisky, and something else – a rank sexual male odour that made Katie gag.

‘We’d better get her upstairs to her room,’ Peggy told Katie as they exchanged despairing looks.

It wasn’t easy. Gerry was so drunk that her limbs were like those of a rag doll, her speech confused, but eventually Katie and Peggy managed to get her into her room and onto her bed.

‘We’ll have to turn her onto her side, in case she’s sick in the night, otherwise she could choke,’ Peggy told Katie practically. ‘Come on, Gerry,’ Peggy instructed her firmly. ‘You’re going to have to sit up.’

‘Don’t want to sit up.’ Gerry told them. ‘Don’t want to do anything,’ but determinedly, and with Katie’s help, Peggy managed to get Gerry into a semi-sitting and much safer position.

‘I don’t really like leaving her on her own in this state, but I’ve got to be at the War Office earlier than usual tomorrow. There’s an important meeting taking place,’ Peggy confided to Katie, when Gerry fell asleep minutes after they had got her sitting up.

‘I’ll stay with her, if you like,’ Katie offered.

‘Would you?’ Peggy gave her a grateful look. ‘I know that strictly speaking it isn’t up to us to look out for her, but—’

‘We’re all in this war together,’ Katie stopped her. ‘I like Gerry and I feel sorry for her. She doesn’t really mean any harm.’

‘No, she doesn’t,’ Peggy agreed.

It was over two hours later when Gerry woke up, her attempt to stand waking Katie, who had been dozing in the chair beside her bed. Throwing off the thin grey blanket she had wrapped round herself, Katie got to her feet just in time to prevent Gerry from losing her balance.

‘Oh, Katie, it’s you. That’s funny,’ Gerry announced. ‘The last thing I remember is being with some GIs.’

‘Yes, they brought you back here,’ Katie agreed.

‘And you don’t approve. Oh, it’s all right, I can tell by the sound of your voice what you’re thinking.’ Gerry shivered. ‘I thought that by living I’d be able to make up for the fact that my brothers are dead; that if I had fun then I’d be having fun for all three of us. I wanted to live for all three of us, Katie, but I can’t. I can’t…’ Her voice broke and her body heaved with the intensity of the ragged sobs shaking her.

‘The more I try, the worse it gets, and the worse I feel. Sometimes I wish that I was dead as well. At least that way we’d all be together and my parents wouldn’t have to worry any more; they wouldn’t look at me and think that there should be three of us. It’s so hard there, just being me.’

Katie ached with sympathy and sadness for her.

‘Sometimes I just want to go to sleep and never wake up again. Have you ever felt like that, Katie?’

All Katie could do was hug her tightly, but Gerry’s anguished outburst had filled her with concern, and she knew she had to say something.

Taking a deep breath she told Gerry quietly, as she released her, ‘I do understand how you feel and, well, I think I’d feel the same, but we can’t always just think of ourselves, Gerry.’

The other girl was looking at her now.

‘You are all your parents have left, Gerry. You are the future of your family. You and the children you will have, not just for yourself but for your brothers as well. Sometimes it takes more courage to live than it does to die. Your brothers were incredibly brave and I know that you can be just as brave.’

For a moment Katie thought she had done the wrong thing. Tears were pouring silently down Gerry’s face, but then Gerry flung herself into Katie’s arms.

‘I just don’t deserve a friend as good as you, Katie,’ she wept. ‘You’re right. The boys would be furious with me for being such a coward. From now on things are going to change. I am going to change.’

They hugged again, Katie close to tears herself.

Later on, as she stood in her own room, her hands wrapped round the comforting warmth of her mug of cocoa, Kate reflected sadly on the effect that the war was having on the emotions of young women, herself included. Some, like Gerry, sought escape from its harsh realities in drink and ‘having fun’; others, like Katie herself, avoided anything other than friendship with young men, for fear of the emotional pain of losing them, whilst women like Peggy Groves, engaged or married, prayed every night that their men would return home safely. If she and Luke Campion had still been engaged, she too would have been one of those waiting and praying and hoping against hope.

But she was not still engaged to Luke, Katie reminded herself. That was over and in the past, just like the despair she had suffered when Luke had first broken off their engagement. But ending it had been the right thing for both of them. As much as she had loved Luke – and she had – she had found his dark moods and jealousy difficult to cope with. The turbulence of her parents’ marriage had left her yearning for the calm of a love based more on the comfort provided by friendship than passion, Katie admitted, but she had not known herself well enough then to be able to see that. She had not known herself and she had not really known Luke either; they had never properly discussed themselves with one another. No, she no longer wept for their broken engagement or her own broken heart.

‘What do you reckon, Corp? Think we’re going to make it?’ Andy asked Luke as they kept their heads down, waiting for the landing craft they were on to get close enough to Salerno’s beachhead for them to disembark.

Luke and Andy had joined up virtually together, trained together, and fought together in the desert, and now here they were about to disembark onto Italian soil.

Their unit, along with the remnants of other British units, were now being deployed in Italy under the command of General Mark Clark, of the American Fifth Army, the aim, to break through the German defences and push all the way to Rome.

Right now, though, Luke reflected, as he tried not to let the screams and moans from a landing craft that had just been hit by a German shell, get through the protective wall that every soldier learned to draw around himself, for some odd reason it was Katie who was at the forefront of his mind. Determinedly he pushed her image away to focus on his men and his responsibility to them.

On the beach ahead of them men from the advanced landing craft had started up a smoke screen to protect the landing of the infantry and the equipment.

The sergeant in charge of their troop was giving the command for the men to make for the beach. Wading through churning water, Luke chivvied his own men on, ignoring the sight of a corpse floating in the sea next to them.

All along the landing area men were coming ashore, amid the cacophony of noise and the acrid smell and taste of smoke, and the enemy shells falling around them, to get their equipment safely beached, before starting to push inland, alongside 146th Field Regiment RA, which was now attached to the 7th Armoured Division.

‘Fighting this ruddy war certainly doesn’t get any easier,’ Andy found time to mutter, in an aside to Luke, as the men fell in and started to push forward. The first rule of any beach landing was that you got off the beach as fast as you could, and as far as the enemy would let you.

This time that distance wasn’t very far, a mile or so Luke reckoned, before all hell broke loose and they were under attack from the Germans.

She had done it. Lou felt like whooping with joy as she taxied her plane neatly to a standstill, after her tenth cross-country flight. This one had been the hardest of all: from Thame to the Castle Bromwich aircraft factory – the largest Spitfire factory in the country – surrounded on three sides by barrage balloons to protect it. Lou had not had to land on the airstrip there this time to avoid clogging it up when it was needed for the removal of Spits to the maintenance units. Instead she had been instructed to drop down almost to a landing height and then lift off again. As the barrage balloons stretched to the western side of the airstrip, all landings had to be made to the west and all take-offs had to be made to the east. Today, even with good visibility and a lightly buffeting
wind, Lou had been aware of what a challenge it must be to perform those manoeuvres when weather conditions were unfavourable.