As they chatted away their time together, they were in London before they knew it, and the train conductor informed them they were at their destination. They grabbed their bags and cases as the train came to a screeching full-stop, brakes creaking and hissing steam under the strain. Peering out of the window, Lizzie pointed to a tall, thin man wearing an air force uniform and carrying a clipboard.
‘I bet he’s for us,’ she said, seizing hold of Diana’s arm with nervousness. Then, ‘I wonder if he’s single,’ she whispered into Diana’s ear and they both started to laugh again. ‘Not a lot of choice in Scotland for me – not that that’s the reason I’m here, of course,’ she said with a glint in her eye, and Diana nodded.
‘You’ll do,’ she joked back.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ asked Lizzie as they waited their turn to file off the train.
Diana shook her head. ‘Not much time for it,’ she said. ‘And as a hairdresser all my customers are women.’
‘I don’t think we’ll have much chance here, either,’ responded Lizzie with reluctance, ‘with all the men away, and I’m sure the air force will have plenty for us to do.’
As they clambered down onto the station platform, they made their way towards the gentleman with the clipboard and then noticed there were three other girls behind them who must have been further down the train. He nodded to all the young women and called out names. Lizzie and Diana were two of them. Lizzie approached him.
‘Excuse me, Flight Lieutenant Stone,’ she said, as he’d introduced himself. ‘Do you think it would be possible for Diana and me to bunk together at the barracks?’
The officer looked up from his clipboard. ‘I don’t really assign barracks, I just get you there,’ he said with a curt smile.
Lizzie did not seem deterred and persisted. ‘Please, could you put a word in for us? We made friends on the train. I’d love to be close to her.’
He looked from one to the other, and Diana was aware that Lizzie was gripping her arm so tightly she was losing feeling. They must have looked as desperate as a pair of refugees.
He nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘Friends are important right now for all of us.’
There was a sad tone to his statement and Diana wondered what had happened in his life for him to comment in that way, and all at once she was aware of the seriousness of being a member of the fighting forces.
He led them all outside, and Diana noticed the city was alive with life. Parked outside the station was a canvas-covered troop truck, which the officer ushered them towards. Diana looked down at her tight skirt and high heels and wondered how she would get herself up into the back of a truck. This hadn’t been the best choice. She hadn’t even thought about it.
‘Up you go, girls,’ he said in a jovial manner as he saw Diana look down at her clothes and shoes. ‘I’m afraid Queen Mary was using her carriage today, so we’ve had to make do with this,’ he joked as he made his way to the front of it. All the girls helped hoist Diana into the truck, and they laughed at her predicament. Once they were settled, Flight Lieutenant Stone’s driver started the engine and they rattled away.
As they went through the streets of London, Diana looked out the back of the truck as the tent-like flap waved up and down in the breeze, their backs bouncing against the canvas walls with the smell of petrol leaking up through the floor. Lizzie sat opposite her and smiled and said exactly what Diana was thinking.
‘Well, whatever happens, it’s going to be an adventure.’
Diana nodded and looked around at the other girls in the truck. This was going to be something different. She could feel it, and she was so grateful to have met Lizzie, who was already making her adjustment a pleasant experience.
When eventually they arrived at the RAF station on which their training barracks were situated, on the far western outskirts of London, Flight Lieutenant Stone must have had a word with the woman who was taking care of them because she joked about them.
‘I guess you two are the Siamese twins who want to be together,’ she announced, noting Lizzie latched onto Diana’s arm again. They both nodded. ‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you settled in.’ They followed behind the older woman, who walked towards the barrack block that was to be their temporary home, and as her stomach tightened, Diana felt a growing anticipation.
4
The next day, on a different London platform, the high-pitched screech of the steam train whistle pierced the hot, stagnant air of the crowded station, forcing soldiers up and down the platform into a frenzy of activity as they dragged themselves from the arms of their loved ones to begin boarding the awaiting troop train.
Catching her breath and drawing him close for one last lingering hug, Julia Sullivan clung to her husband and tried desperately not to cry. Burying her face into the coarse weave of his khaki-brown army uniform, she inhaled the scent of the family soap on his neck, a familiar luxury which by some miracle she’d managed to buy, but which was now only a cruel reminder that it was John who was going to war this time, not a neighbour or some distant stranger. Her own precious husband.
Even though Julia attempted to gulp down her tears as she drew away to study him, she was aware he noticed her resolve was crumbling and reproached herself for letting her anguish slip, especially as she had been so good at hiding it from him for weeks. Somehow, she had put on a brave face, from the bitter blow of John receiving his call-up papers all the way through to helping him pack his kitbag.
Even as he’d held his two children for the last time on their doorstep, scarcely an hour before, with Maggie sobbing uncontrollably in his arms and Tom’s pale face and trembling bottom lip conveying all of his dread, even then, Julia had managed to keep it together, wanting to be strong for them all. But now her well-constructed wall was disintegrating right in front of him.
‘Come on, gal, chin up. I’ll be back before you know it,’ he whispered into her ear, the lilt of his London accent reassuring her above the clatter of train doors being wrenched open and kitbags being thrown inside. Sliding his hand beneath her blonde curls, he cupped the back of her neck gently to tilt her head up to meet his gaze as he brushed her lips with a gentle kiss. His tone was light-hearted, but as he drew away and his green eyes searched her own, gone was his usual twinkle of mischief and in its place a real look of concern. Julia knew what every facial expression signified from this person she had known all of her life and had watched grow from a boy to a man, knew that even behind his easy tone and staunch patriotic determination, he still needed her strength to get onto the train.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she insisted, drumming up all the false bravado she could muster, fighting the quiver in her voice and her trembling knees. ‘I’m sure the War Office will have plenty for me to do while you’re gone.’
John nodded and swept his thumb across her face, gently wiping away a tear that had betrayed her show of strength and had trickled down her cheek without her realizing.
All at once, a torrid wind ripped down the platform, swirling the stale air into hot spirals that tousled hair, rustled newspapers, and turned up the corners of a poster that hung on the red brick wall with a beaming woman holding a cauliflower encouraging them to ‘Dig For Victory’. As it whipped around the back of her bare knees, Julia stepped back from John’s arms to cling on to her new cornflower-blue cloche hat she had purchased especially to see him off.