Gracie's Sin Read Online Free PDF

particular squad was Enid, who hated to get her hair messed up and, like Lou, was desperate to know when they might have a bit of free time so she could sneak out to meet her sweetheart. Lean and wiry Jeannie, a talkative Scot who always carried a packet of cigarettes in her dungaree breast pocket, though she only ever smoked half a cigarette at a time, carefully returning the dog-end to the packet with fingers stained yellow from the habit. Then there was Lena who rarely stopped complaining for more than five minutes together. If the September sun shone she complained it was too hot to work. When it rained, she moaned about the mud – she particularly objected to the mud, but also the pay, the hard beds, her aching back and anything else which displeased her, even accusing people of borrowing her soap without permission.
    ‘Goodness Lena. You’re not accusing me, I hope. Why would I use your lovely Lavender soap when I’ve got me own best coal tar?’ Lou said, her face deadpan.
    Lena frowned, not quite sure whether her leg was being pulled or not. ‘I really do think people should respect other people’s property, that’s all.’ She brushed a fleck of mud from her nose, thrown up by the lorry’s wheels. ‘One has to have standards and I really can’t cope with all this - this - ‘
    ‘Weather?’ A burst of giggles all round.
    ‘All right. Make fun if you must. I’ve only saying...’
    ‘We know what you’re saying Lena. Put a sock in it, lassie,’ Jeannie tartly informed her. ‘Ye’re not the only one suffering here. I'd gi’e me virginity, if I still had it, for a guid long soak in a hot tub.’
    More snorts of laughter at Jeannie’s bluntness, while Lou glanced anxiously at Gracie who was taking all of this in with a worrying expression of concern. ‘I hope you aren’t considering tackling Matron again. Personally, I’d rather face an enemy tank.’
    Gracie merely lifted her pale eyebrows, flicked back her long blond hair and said not a word. Nevertheless on the fifth day, which again poured with rain, an awning for the lorry was indeed provided, as well as wooden benches around each of its four sides. Tired of being blocked by Matron, she’d approached the supervisor directly who had apparently been unaware of the problem, or so she claimed, and was only too happy to put it right. Flushed with pleasure at this small victory, Gracie was given a rousing cheer and treated as a heroine, for all she apologised that she’d got nowhere over the mattresses. Matron was adamant. The “biscuits” would stay.
    Lou was astounded and hugely impressed. There was more to this girl than met the eye. However, there remained the danger that in bypassing Matron and achieving her object, this might well inflame relations with the woman still further.
    At least the food is good,’ Lou had remarked on the first day as she’d bit into a hefty cheese sandwich. ‘What a treat. I love cheese. Haven’t had any in ages.’
    The girls’ appetites, already healthy, grew day by the day and lunch was always a welcome break, time to find a quiet spot under a tree, occasionally to be warmed by the pale autumn sunshine when there was a break in the showers. It was an opportunity to put their feet up for half an hour, to get out their packets of sandwiches and thermos flasks of tea.
    The second day Lou had again welcomed the cheese sandwich, and on the third. Even on the fourth day as Lena was loudly complaining and asking for sardines, she’d stoutly devoured it without comment. By the end of the week though, as she opened yet another packet of cheese sandwiches, she began to think that, for once, Lena might have a point. ‘Oh no, not cheese again!’
    ‘As agricultural workers we’re allowed extra cheese,’ Tess explained. ‘So that’s what we get. Cheese, cheese and more cheese.’
    ‘One can have too much of a good thing,’ Lou groaned, biting into the thick crust with a grimace of distaste.
    At the start of the