A Girl in Wartime Read Online Free PDF

blooming Bible – well, not exactly a Bible, a sort of coloured book with a picture of the coming of Salvation, whatever that was. It was a wonder he didn’t take his bed to that church of his – which was more of a bleak wooden hall than a proper church, sitting well back from a tiny row of houses in Three Colts Lane.
    He’d go there most days, all over that minister of his or pastor or whatever he was called, and then come home to spout the odds about this wicked world and if people stopped to listen to what the Lord was trying to tell them, it’d be a far better place – da-di-da-di-da – until they were sick of hearing it. Usually when he started up in the evenings, Dad would get up, tell them he was off to the pub, leaving the rest of them to suffer. Much as she loved her brother, Connie couldn’t help but feel it wouldn’t do George any harm to pray less and work more, be an asset to the family instead of driving them barmy with his religious outbursts.
    That George hardly worked got up all their noses, especially Ronnie and Albert, though when he did the odd casual job, he’d give nearly all of it to Mum, and when she asked how he was fixed for money, he usually said something like ‘the Lord will provide’.
    Currently, he was so engrossed in his reading, he’d hardly spoken to her, much less Mum. He seemed to live in a world of his own. It shouldn’t have but it got on her nerves sometimes, and this evening she felt glad to be getting out of the house, meeting some friends of hers. The three of them were going to a young persons’ club they belonged to in Old Gosset Street to have a laugh and a joke with a few boys, enjoy a soft drink or two.
    â€˜What’s made you so late, then?’ Mum’s question to Ronnie cut through her thoughts as her mother came in with his dinner, all steaming hot from the oven.
    Connie saw him grin. ‘I’ve been stuck for ages in a blooming great queue, everyone there looking to sign up.’
    About to take up Connie’s now empty plate to bear it off to the kitchen, his mother turned back to stare at him. ‘Sign up?’ she asked. ‘What for?’
    Dad, who had just come into the room, stopped short. No one had heard him enter the house. He was in time to catch his wife’s last words: ‘Sign up? What for?’ Now he stood there glowering. ‘What you mean, sign up?’ he growled.
    â€˜For the army,’ Ronnie said calmly as if explaining in monosyllabic words to a child. ‘You should’ve seen the size of the queue there.’
    Connie saw her father’s bushy brows come together, his generous moustache twitch. ‘You can’t sign on. You ain’t eighteen yet.’
    â€˜I will be in November.’
    â€˜That’s still five bloody weeks away.’
    â€˜They don’t ask questions so long as you look old enough.’ He started back a fraction as his father came to stand over him, still in his coat and cap, his face black from the sacks of coal he’d delivered all day to endless households.
    â€˜Go and wash up, love,’ Connie heard her mother say anxiously, but he took no notice of her plea.
    â€˜I don’t bloody care what or who they want. You go back there and tell ’em you still only seventeen, and I’ll come with you to make sure you do.’
    Ronnie looked his father straight in the eye.
    â€˜I’m a man now, Dad. I signed up as one. I’m a man – a soldier. It’s done. I leave on Friday – for Aldershot.’
    Albert was still stationed at Aldershot, approaching the end of his six weeks training. ‘I might meet Bert. We’ll be together. They do put brothers together, and close friends and sometime whole streets or neighbourhoods, if they sign up at the same time, all in the same regiment whenever possible. It’s good for morale.’
    â€˜Then I’ll tell ’em you’re under