The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [123]
‘How can it be gone when it’s in your locker?’
‘Well, that’s it, see.’ Alice admitted. ‘I didn’t put it in me locker on account of not having time. I left it in me bag hanging up on me peg.’
‘You did what? You dafthead, that was just asking to have it taken.’
Several female heads swung accusingly in the direction of the woman who had been caught out stealing before now.
‘’Ere, don’t you lot go blaming me again, ’cos it weren’t me,’ she objected immediately, bristling defensively. ‘And wot’s more, my Wilf says he’s going to come down here and knock a few ’eads together if anyone starts mouthing off any more lies about me.’
‘Someone had better go and have a look in her locker,’ one of the other women called out sharply.
‘Give over, you lot,’ Jess chimed in. ‘Lizzie would have to be daft to go thieving now after what happened. Come on, Alice, and stop that blubbing. What you had to bring it here for in the first place I don’t know. Not when we all know that we can’t wear watches when we’re working,’ Jess pointed out.
‘Aye and not when we all know there’s thieves about as well,’ Maureen told her witheringly. ‘You wouldn’t catch me leaving anything valuable like a gold watch lying around for someone to take. I reckon your husband is going to have summat to say to you when he gets home next.’
‘Oh, give it a rest, will yer, Maureen,’ one of the other women demanded grimly. ‘There’s no call to go rubbing it in. Now see what you’ve done,’ she accused her when Alice began to cry noisily.
‘Coo, tek a look at that, will yer?’ Lucy called as the girls queued up to leave the factory, nodding in the direction of the US Army Jeep parked outside the gates.
‘Maybe it’s your Glen, come to drive you home,’ Jess teased Ruthie, as she showed the duty guard her ID.
Ruthie followed her, holding out her own ID, and then looking at the duty guard in bewilderment when he told her sharply, ‘No, not you.’
‘What’s up? What’s going on?’ Lucy demanded.
‘You Ruthie Philpott, are you?’ the guard asked Ruthie, scrutinising her ID, ‘because if you are, there’s someone waiting to see you.’
‘It is Glen,’ Jess, who had hung back with Ruthie to find out what was going on, squealed triumphantly, when the guard nodded in the direction of the waiting Jeep.
Ruthie felt her heart lift with excitement and delight as she hurried over to the waiting Jeep, escorted by a group of her curious and giggling friends.
Only when she reached the Jeep she could see that there were two men inside it and that neither of them was Glen.
‘Are you Ruthie Philpott?’ the one in the passenger seat stopped chewing his gum to ask her.
Numbly, Ruthie nodded.
‘Colonel’s orders. We’ve got to take you back to camp with us.’
‘He’ll want to see you about you and Glen getting married, Ruthie,’ Jess hissed. ‘Go on. You go with them,’ she urged. ‘I reckon your Glen must have bin telling them how impatient he is to get married to you,’ she teased.
Neither of the soldiers in the Jeep was saying anything, and their silence made Ruthie feel uncomfortable. She couldn’t help thinking how much nicer it would have been if Glen had been able to come to get her himself, but perhaps that was against the rules.
‘What about my mother? She’ll worry when I don’t get home at the usual time.’
‘I’ll stop off on me own way home and tell her for you,’ Jess promised. ‘And if you get to see Walter, don’t forget to tell him how sorry I am that he got hurt,’ she added, as the soldier standing by the rear door of the Jeep held it open for her so that she could scramble into the back.
By nature Ruthie was not used to talking to strangers, so she was in a way relieved when the two soldiers didn’t try to engage her in conversation, and even more relieved that the noisy rattling of the Jeep prevented her from hearing more than the odd ripe word from their low-voiced conversation, with its frequent bursts of laughter. The world inhabited by men was still an alien and rather daunting world to her, and she instinctively retreated