Free Soldier Girl by Annie Murray

of Billy, the lad on the train, came to her again, as it had done several times in the afternoon. He’d been nice to her all right. He fancied her, that much was obvious. She thanked God there were men in the camp as well. Girls were an unknown quantity – she didn’t know how to impress them. Blokes were a different matter. She’d kept an eye out for Billy that afternoon as they had gone from hut to hut, but there’d been no sign of him. Perhaps she’d come across him tomorrow? He’d been interested, that was for sure. She was lying picturing his blond hair, and his eager pink face, knowing she could hook him in. It gave her back a sense of herself.
    Someone was sobbing quietly in the darkness near her and she knew it was Honor. Lena seemed to be already asleep, breathing lustily from across the way, and there was whispering coming from the other end of the room.
    Suddenly, out of the darkness, a clear soprano voice started to sing. Molly didn’t know the song and her first reaction was to laugh at the green forests and lovers’ towers that cropped up in the words. But she heard several of the others join in. Some of the girls must have learned the song at their posh schools. She wanted to sneer, but there was something comforting about the sweet voices and she was taken over by the loveliness of the tune which finally lulled them all to sleep.

 
Nine
     
    ‘The purpose of this three weeks of basic training is to lick you all into shape – and that’ll be no mean task by the look of you,’ Corporal Morrison informed them at the top of her voice.
    The new recruits were gathered in one of the instruction huts at what still felt a very early hour, despite the fact that the morning PT – a run through the rain and slush – and breakfast of thick porridge were already done. Blisters burned on Molly’s feet, her lungs felt stretched and she was tingling all over. PT felt very good – once it was over!
    There were now snowflakes whirling in the air again outside. Corporal Morrison still seemed to think it necessary to address them as loudly as if she were outside bawling into a high wind.
    ‘You will be drilled to learn the discipline of the soldier’s life, and by the time you leave here you will know how to participate in the running of a military camp. Believe it or not,’ she yelled witheringly, ‘you will learn how to be a credit to His Majesty’s uniform. You will then be assigned either to general duties or to a trade, depending on your capabilities.’
    The girls sat listening in their stiff, unfamiliar uniforms. Their hut that morning had been full of fumbling, curses and giggles after PT as they came to grips with the starched collars and alien buttons, the clunky suspender belts and thick lisle stockings.
    ‘Make sure you double them over at the top,’ the quartermaster had ordered. ‘You’ll soon get ladders if you fasten them on to the thin bit – and don’t come crying to me if you do. You only get a new pair when those are worn out – so you darn any ladders with your hussif.’
    Of course Honor had forgotten this advice, and for the first time of wearing, she plunged the metal suspender clip straight through the stocking, causing a ladder. There were more tears. With her calm, kind manner, Win came and comforted the distraught girl.
    ‘I don’t even know how to darn,’ the girl sobbed. ‘I don’t know how to do anything!’
    ‘Look, don’t worry,’ Win said heartily, her dark hair bent close to Honor’s almost colourless blonde. ‘I’ll teach you later. It’s not difficult. We’ll all help each other. That’s the way forward, eh?’
    It had been Win, with her apparent good nature and natural authority, who had left her bed first and ordered and cajoled the others out into the 6.30 a.m. darkness for their first session of PT – a run round the field perimeter followed by physical jerks in the freezing dawn drizzle. It had all come as a shock to Molly. She had lolloped