Free The Girls They Left Behind by Lilian Harry Page B

remember? Two days married life I had, and now my Derek’s miles away down in Devon, and God knows when I’ll see him again.’ She glowered at her sister and Betty shrugged.
    ‘That’s not my fault is it? I didn’t tell you to get married.’ She bit her lip. She and Olive had always been good friends, never squabbled much, yet these days it seemed they were always bickering. She said more quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Livvy. I know you miss him. Same as I missed Graham when he was away. And he’ll be off again soon, once they get the ship sorted out, and I don’t know what might happen to him, do I. But that’s just what I’m saying. They’re both doing something and we’re just stuck here. I want to be doing something too. Something really important. Don’t you?’
    ‘I reckon it’s important to keep on going same as always,’ Olive said. The men have got to have homes to come back to and it’s up to us women to make sure they do. Look at that raid last night. Dozens of houses smashed. People have been coming into the office all morning trying to get Mr Harker to do their repairs. How d’you think he’d manage without someone to run his office?’
    ‘Oh, I daresay he needs someone to do all his paperwork for him,’ Betty agreed. ‘But it doesn’t have to be you, does it? Mrs Harker could do that. Anyway —’ as she saw her sister’s face darken again I wasn’t talking about you, I was talking about me. I want to do something more than count bags of eggs and make up pats of butter. Not that there’s much butter to pat these days, nor eggs to count neither.’ She laid her knife and fork together on her plate as Annie had always taught her, and sighed, ‘I wish they’d call me up into the Land Army. It’s ages since I put my name down.’
    ‘I don’t reckon they’re going to,’ Olive said. ‘They’ve got too many girls registering. I tell you what’s happened, with people not using their cars any more, and farmers going back to horses, all the blokes who worked as village garage 5’
     
    mechanics have gone on the land. That’s why they don’t want the girls after all. And there’s plenty of old men, farm labourers who know what they’re doing and pleased enough
    to earn themselves a bit of money. I shouldn’t think you’ll ever get called up.’
    ‘Well, I’ll go into one of the other Services then. The Wrens. Or the WAAFs.’ She got up and looked into the mirror that hung over the fireplace, pulling with her fingers at the golden-brown curls clustering over her head. ‘Which uniform d’you think would suit me best?’
    Annie clucked with irritation. ‘Honestly, our Betty, you make me so cross at times. You don’t go into the Services just because of a pretty uniform. Anyway, I don’t expect your Dad would let you go. He’s never said yes to you joining the Land Army, you know that.’
    Betty pouted. ‘He’s an old stickin-the-mud. Why shouldn’t I join the Land Army? Or anything else? It’s for my country, isn’t it? To help win the war? What’s wrong with that?’
    ‘Yes, why shouldn’t Bet do what she wants?’ Olive joined in. She was well aware that her father had been against ter marrying Derek before she was twenty-one, until Derek had come back from Dunkirk and made it clear he wasn’t waiting any longer. Now she was a married woman and therefore outside her father’s jurisdiction, even though she was still living at home with her parents, and she could afford to stick up for her sister. ‘If she wants to go and milk cows and dig potatoes, why not?’
    Annie sighed and fetched the pudding. It was stewed apple tart with some custard made more with water than milk. The custard was thin, and a year ago she’d have felt like throwing it away, but things had changed since then. You couldn’t get the ingredients to make decent puddings and you couldn’t afford to waste what there was. You had to make do — she’d already tried making ‘banana pudding’ with