Goodnight Sweetheart Read Online Free PDF Page B

Molly to let her have hers, June decided.
    ‘’Ere, guess what?’ another of the girls demanded breathlessly, as she came hurrying into the room. ‘I was just happening to be standing outside the office and what should I hear—’
    ‘Come off it, Ruby. Admit it, you was listening on purpose,’ May teased her.
    ‘Do you want to know what I heard, May Dunning, or do you want to wait until old man Harding tells you?’ Ruby demanded.
    ‘Go on then, tell us,’ May gave in.
    ‘Well, old man Harding was talking to his missus, and saying as how they gorra take on more machinists, because of the Government wanting him to make a lorra stuff, like, for the army.’
    ‘What, you mean uniforms?’ May demanded excitedly. ‘Cor, that will be a change from stitching bloomers. Just imagine the chaps as’ll be wearing them: all fit and handsome, like …’ May wasnotorious for having an eye for the men and often regaled them with saucy tales on a Monday morning of the latest man she’d met over the weekend.
    ‘They might be fit and handsome when they first put on their uniforms, but they won’t be for very long. Soon they’ll start coming home dead, just like my Thomas …’ The high-pitched emotional voice that joined the conversation belonged to Hannah Carter, the oldest and normally the quietest of the machinists, a small spare woman who had been widowed at the end of the First World War. Everyone turned to look at her with varying degrees of consternation or accusation.
    ‘’Ere, Hannah, there’s no call for you to be saying stuff like that, and upsetting people,’ Sheila Williams protested, her already florid complexion turning even pinker.
    ‘Yes, there is. You don’t know what it’s going to be like, but I do. You don’t know how it feels to send your husband off to war and never see him again.’ Hannah had started to cry in earnest now.
    Molly went over to try to comfort her.
    ‘Watch out. Boss is on his way,’ one of the girls called out, and immediately they all hurried to their machines so that by the time the door opened to admit a grey-haired middle-aged man and the thin-faced woman accompanying him, the room was filled with the sound of treadle machines busily stitching.
    Robert Harding rang a small hand bell as a signal to the women to stop work, and then announced importantly, ‘From today we’re going to be making some changes at Hardings, on account of us being called on by the Government to make uniforms for our brave soldiers.’
    ‘What kind of changes?’ Irene demanded sturdily.
    ‘Well, for one thing we’re going to be taking on more machinists, and for another, Miss Jenner here is going to be in charge of all you machinists, to make sure that the uniforms are made to the proper standard.’
    Molly gave a small shiver as she looked at the thin, hard-eyed woman standing at Robert Harding’s side, surveying them all with unsmiling grimness. There was something about her that sent a chill right through Molly.
    ‘All right, back to work, everyone.’
    The sharp command was given almost before the door had closed behind Robert Harding, and although the girls obediently bent over their work, Molly was anxiously aware that some of them, June included, were not likely to take very well to Miss Jenner’s arrival. It sent another shiver of apprehension all the way down Molly’s spine to know that the supervisor was patrolling the narrow aisles between the rows of machines, standing behind each of them in turn to observe their work. Up to now Molly had liked her job. She was a good machinist, quick and deft, butwith the cold censorious weight of Miss Jenner’s gaze on her back she was all fingers and thumbs.
    ‘So when are we gonna be starting working on these uniforms, then, Miss Jenner?’ May asked boldly, causing a collective sigh of relief to spread through the room at this breaking of the silent tension.
    Their relief had come too soon though. Miss Jenner strode towards May and said