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Authors: Glenice Crossland
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shall. I shall take you over in the car next week. A visit to my friend Ernest is long overdue. I need some sheet music for the choir, though when we’ll get round to
practising I don’t know, since they’re all occupied with this home guard business at present. I know we ought to be grateful, but I’ll be darned if I can see the need for it out
here. So you arrange it with your friend, and I’ll visit Ernest and pick you up when the service is over.’
St Catherine’s was packed to capacity. Nowhere near as large as the Protestant church which dominated the main street, St Catherine’s was situated halfway up the
hill. Theresa’s large and friendly family accepted Mary into their midst and made her promise to stay to lunch next time. Mary felt at home immediately in the church, though she left feeling
more sinful than ever, having shirked confessing what she privately thought of as the Christmas sin.
Dr Roberts had a brainwave on the way home. ‘You can learn to drive the car and then I can lend it to you on a Sunday. That way you won’t be so tied, and what’s more you can go
into Sheffield with Gladys on a Saturday. She needs to get out more and I must confess I’m really not up to town driving.’
‘You’re surely not serious?’ said Mary. ‘Why, I don’t know one end of a motor from the other. We’re likely to end up in the reservoir with me behind the
wheel.’
‘If the girls at the ambulance station can drive then so can you. I’m sure you’ve more brains than the giggly lot of them put together, and they’ve taken to the wheel as
though they were born to it.’
‘I wouldn’t dare.’
‘Well, we’ll see. You can have a go after dinner.’
Mary couldn’t help feeling excited. Tom had once suggested letting her take the wheel but it hadn’t seemed right without the doctor’s permission. The image of Tom warmed her
heart and as always when she thought of him she prayed that he was safe. She suddenly realised that her job had diverted her mind from the desolation and doom that had occupied it after Tom’s
departure, and she was thinking about the future more positively. Suddenly she felt fulfilled. She was doing a worthwhile job, even if it was only cutting steel strips to make cartridge clips.
Mary made up her mind she would learn to drive. After all, how many girls were given a chance like that, especially in wartime? Besides, it would provide a way of paying back the doctor for
everything. She knew how much he hated driving, so now she could take them out at weekends. That was one thing about being a doctor: he was allowed a fair amount of petrol. Another incentive was
the thought of Tom’s face when she picked him up at the station in the car. She would wear her pink satin on that occasion.
Oh, it had done her good to go to church again, even though she hadn’t confessed her Christmas sin.
Chapter Eight
Robert Scott crumpled up yet another sheet of paper and gave a deep sigh. How the hell was he expected to write a letter of such importance when he was in this state of
physical and mental exhaustion?
He had thought the horror was over once he was picked up on the boat. How bloody wrong could a man be? That had just been the beginning of the nightmare.
The nights were the worst: the cold sweats, the trembling, the palpitations and the churning pain in the region of the solar plexus. Worst of all the constant reliving of the train of events
from the time Tom and he had arrived at Cherbourg. The first week hadn’t been too bad; in fact the only thing to spoil the peace of the farm buildings they had taken residence in had been the
bloody church clock which had struck every quarter-hour day and night. They had laughed then and sung. That was before they moved to Armentiers. It was there that all hell broke loose; things
happened so fast then that they hadn’t known where they were. He picked up the pen once more.
Darlington, June 1940. Dear Mr Downing ... He
practising I don’t know, since they’re all occupied with this home guard business at present. I know we ought to be grateful, but I’ll be darned if I can see the need for it out
here. So you arrange it with your friend, and I’ll visit Ernest and pick you up when the service is over.’
St Catherine’s was packed to capacity. Nowhere near as large as the Protestant church which dominated the main street, St Catherine’s was situated halfway up the
hill. Theresa’s large and friendly family accepted Mary into their midst and made her promise to stay to lunch next time. Mary felt at home immediately in the church, though she left feeling
more sinful than ever, having shirked confessing what she privately thought of as the Christmas sin.
Dr Roberts had a brainwave on the way home. ‘You can learn to drive the car and then I can lend it to you on a Sunday. That way you won’t be so tied, and what’s more you can go
into Sheffield with Gladys on a Saturday. She needs to get out more and I must confess I’m really not up to town driving.’
‘You’re surely not serious?’ said Mary. ‘Why, I don’t know one end of a motor from the other. We’re likely to end up in the reservoir with me behind the
wheel.’
‘If the girls at the ambulance station can drive then so can you. I’m sure you’ve more brains than the giggly lot of them put together, and they’ve taken to the wheel as
though they were born to it.’
‘I wouldn’t dare.’
‘Well, we’ll see. You can have a go after dinner.’
Mary couldn’t help feeling excited. Tom had once suggested letting her take the wheel but it hadn’t seemed right without the doctor’s permission. The image of Tom warmed her
heart and as always when she thought of him she prayed that he was safe. She suddenly realised that her job had diverted her mind from the desolation and doom that had occupied it after Tom’s
departure, and she was thinking about the future more positively. Suddenly she felt fulfilled. She was doing a worthwhile job, even if it was only cutting steel strips to make cartridge clips.
Mary made up her mind she would learn to drive. After all, how many girls were given a chance like that, especially in wartime? Besides, it would provide a way of paying back the doctor for
everything. She knew how much he hated driving, so now she could take them out at weekends. That was one thing about being a doctor: he was allowed a fair amount of petrol. Another incentive was
the thought of Tom’s face when she picked him up at the station in the car. She would wear her pink satin on that occasion.
Oh, it had done her good to go to church again, even though she hadn’t confessed her Christmas sin.
Chapter Eight
Robert Scott crumpled up yet another sheet of paper and gave a deep sigh. How the hell was he expected to write a letter of such importance when he was in this state of
physical and mental exhaustion?
He had thought the horror was over once he was picked up on the boat. How bloody wrong could a man be? That had just been the beginning of the nightmare.
The nights were the worst: the cold sweats, the trembling, the palpitations and the churning pain in the region of the solar plexus. Worst of all the constant reliving of the train of events
from the time Tom and he had arrived at Cherbourg. The first week hadn’t been too bad; in fact the only thing to spoil the peace of the farm buildings they had taken residence in had been the
bloody church clock which had struck every quarter-hour day and night. They had laughed then and sung. That was before they moved to Armentiers. It was there that all hell broke loose; things
happened so fast then that they hadn’t known where they were. He picked up the pen once more.
Darlington, June 1940. Dear Mr Downing ... He
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