Free Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings by Julia Stoneham

nose, reached for Winnie’s, then Gwennan’s and began, noisily, to stack them.
    ‘The least said about “down the pub” the better, if you ask me!’ she said harshly, everyone following her progress as she moved towards the scullery.
    Although the huge task of feeding the girls on time with food that was as plentiful and as nourishing as possible had been successfully performed there was still work to do. After the washing-up of the dishes and the setting of the table for breakfast there were eight cut lunches to prepare which, with very limited ingredients to put between the slabs of bread, was a formidable task. Alice positioned first one and then another of the long, square loaves into the slicer and worked it to and fro.
    ‘You mind out for your fingers,’ warned Rose, darkly, spreading margarine. ‘A warden over to Yelverton cut the top clean off of one of ’ers las’ week!’ They mashed a tin of corned beef, sliced up some beetroot and filled the sandwiches. Rose divided up a ginger cake that she’d baked that afternoon. The individual sandwiches and portions of cake were then wrapped in greaseproof paper and stacked ready for the morning. Then the airing racks were lowered from above the range and the day’s damp clothes were brought through from the linhay, spread out on the racks and hoisted up to dry.
    ‘Reckon we should get ’em to do this for theirselves,’ Rose gasped, almost speechless with fatigue.
    ‘I’ll work out a roster,’ Alice said and later, sitting up in her bed, her pillows at her back, a notebook on her knees, had begun to do so when she fell asleep.

Chapter Three
    Christine waited on the windswept platform of Ledburton Halt for the Plymouth train which, delayed by bomb damage to the track near Slough, was almost an hour late. She had changed out of the thick, muddy layers of her work clothes and was wearing a silk dress that, under her winter coat, left her shivering. Every minute the train was late shortened her precious time with her husband but, an hour and a half later, when she stepped down onto the platform in Plymouth and he put his arms round her and ran with her across a deserted street and into the small bed and breakfast hotel where he had booked a double room for their single night, the waiting and the cold and the loss of time together evaporated.
    The bedroom walls were papered with a design of leaves in crude autumnal colours. Sagging floorboardscaused the furniture to lean dangerously and the stale reek of fried food which had greeted them in the hallway below had permeated the bedrooms and the lavatory on the landing which, together with the luxury of a hand basin in their room, was as far as ablutions went in this establishment.
    Christine bounced happily on the edge of the bed while Ron put her coat on a hanger and hooked it over a peg on the back of the door. He then made a flying tackle in the direction of his wife, spreading her under him. She squealed with pleasure, pretending to fight him off before surrendering provocatively, enjoying his mouth and the feel of his hands sliding up under her skirt. But when she felt him hard against her she wriggled free, giggling as he kissed and kissed her, preventing her from speaking.
    ‘You have got some what’s-its, haven’t you?’ she managed, finally and breathlessly.
    ‘Ah, shit, Chrissie!’ he said, the mood broken. She put her lips against his moist, sulky mouth.
    ‘You’d better get some, lovey,’ she whispered, meeting his eyes. ‘I know…’ she coaxed. ‘But remember what we said.’ The decision not to have children during the war had been mutual. It would be just their luck, she told him, for them to take a chance and get caught out. He capitulated, climbed off her, took her hands in his, turned them and kissed the palms, watching her eyes widen as he forced his tongue between her fingers.
    ‘Hey, what’s this?’ he said, examining the row of rosy blisters across her right