As Time Goes By. Annie Groves
yer, love?’ one of the women serving up the food had asked her sympathetically, unwittingly aiding her deceit. ‘A nice cup of tea and a lie-down with a hot-water bottle is what you want.’
When Sam had made her exit from the room under the grim unblinking stare of the warrant officer, she had told herself that her lack of sympathy would make her own victory in retrieving Mouse’s bear all the sweeter. Poor Mouse. She looked so miserable, her face all blotchy from her tears. The other recruits had all seen the way she had visibly flinched when they had walked in past the warrant officer.
Toadie had a good appetite, and since she wouldn’t sit down to eat until she had made sure all the girls were up and in the dining room, Sam reckoned she had plenty of time to achieve her mission and get back to the dorm without being found out – providing there was no one around by the front door to see her.
That was the part of her plan that had kept her awake last night. With no chance of doing a recce beforehand, she would have to trust to her own memory and the breakfast routine of the billet.
Toadie was bound to want to be downstairs ready to pounce on them as they left on the buses for work, which meant that she probably had a maximum of twenty minutes in which to get the bear – providing the cubbyhole wasn’t locked.
As she had hoped, the hallway was deserted, the front doors closed. Sam found that she was holding her breath. The cubbyhole door was closed. And locked? There was only one way she was going to find out.
Quickly looking over her shoulder to check that there was no one around, Sam slipped behind the reception desk and headed for the door. If the captain was in her office and heard or saw her, she would have to come up with a pretty good excuse for being here. Her mouth had gone dry. Her heart was pounding with the kind of reckless excitement she could remember from her childhood forays into Russell’s often booby-trapped room. Hopefully Toadie would not have rigged up a bag of flour to empty itself on her head if she tried to open the door, as Russell might have done. A small bubble of laughter formed in her throat. The warrant officer waste precious flour – of course she wouldn’t. But she could inflict far more serious reprisals on her than Russell, Sam reminded herself, if she should be caught.
But she wasn’t going to be caught. She reached for the door handle, turning it carefully and exhaling in relief when the door opened.
At least once she was inside she could close the door so that she couldn’t be seen. And be caught red-handed if she had got her estimates wrong and Toadie appeared.
The small room smelled of stale sweat and cigarette smoke. Sam wrinkled her nose in distaste. The shelves lining the walls were unexpectedly untidy, jammed with papers and books as well as various items that looked as though, like Mouse’s bear, they had been confiscated. The bear! Where was it? It should be easy enough to find. Sam scanned the shelves intently, frowning when she couldn’t see it. It must be here. It had to be. She looked at her watch. Fifteen minute since she had left the dining room – which meant she had only five minutes left at most.
She looked down at the small desk pushed back against the shelves and then stiffened as she saw the telltale pieces of golden fur on the floor besides a wastepaper bin. Sam picked up the bin. Pieces of fur fabric and kapok filled the bottom of it. She could see one beady brown eye staring up at her. To her own astonishment she could feel her own eyes starting to sting with tears. She reached down into the bin, her hand shaking slightly as she gently turned the eye into the fabric. Poor, poor bear and poor, poor Mouse. She must never know about this. Hazel had been right to say that the warrant officer was sadistic. She must have known what destroying her bear would do to Mouse.
Shakily she put down the bin and opened the door. The hallway was still empty. She stepped out of the room, closing the door.
She was halfway across the hall when a girl she didn’t know appeared at the top of the stairs.
As she headed for them herself Sam said as nonchalantly as she could, ‘I thought I’d try and get some fresh air but the front door doesn’t seem to be open.’
‘No, it won’t be yet,’ the other girl replied ‘The warrant officer should be on her way down to open it, though, if you want to wait …’
Waiting for the warrant officer was the last thing Sam wanted to do but the other girl seemed to be standing in her way. Deliberately?
Sam raised her hand to her mouth and made a small choking sound, keeping her head down as she whispered, ‘I’m sorry … please excuse me. I need the bathroom,’ and dived past her. Her nausea wasn’t faked either. She was still in shock from seeing that poor bear.
‘Toadie’s bin looking for you,’ May warned her, coming out of the dorm as Sam headed in. ‘Corp told her that you was in the lavvy throwing up.’ Sam opened the dormitory door. Hazel’s crisply businesslike, ‘Feeling any better, Grey?’ warned Sam of the warrant officer’s presence before she saw her standing in the shadows.
‘Sorry about that, Corp,’ she apologised. ‘It must have been something I ate. I’ll feel better once I’ve had a bit of fresh air,’ she added, remembering the girl on the stairs.
‘Private Hatton isn’t very well either. In fact she’s seeing the MO now,’ Hazel informed her in a neutral voice. ‘I dare say it must have been something you ate when you were working together yesterday.’
‘Yes,’ Sam agreed quickly. ‘I did think that sandwich we bought in the Naafi smelled a bit off.’
‘Has anyone seen the warrant officer, only the captain’s asking for her?’ a breathless voice called out urgently from outside the dormitory, causing Sam and Hazel to exchange looks of relief.
‘What is wrong with Mouse?’ Sam asked Hazel as soon as she was sure the warrant officer was out of earshot.
‘I don’t know. Toadie tried to force her to eat her breakfast. She was goading her, asking her if she didn’t want to eat because Teddy wasn’t there. Mouse was white as a sheet. She tried to force down a couple of mouthfuls, but then she passed out in a dead faint. If you ask me the MO is going to send her home, and to be honest it would probably be for the best.’
‘If he does, she’ll have to go without her bear,’ Sam told her, colouring up when she saw the look Hazel was giving her.
‘I’m your corporal, don’t forget,’ she warned Sam firmly. ‘And—’
‘Toadie’s cut it up – the bear.’ Sam was unable to hold back the words. They rushed out, filled with her own disbelief and disgust. Fresh tears burned the backs of her eyes. ‘How could she do something so rotten? She must know …’
She could feel Hazel’s fingers fastening round her arm as she gave her a small firm shake, and told her quietly, ‘I know you’re upset but it doesn’t do to show it. Better to get a grip.’ She waited a few seconds whilst Sam struggled to bring her emotions under control and then said approvingly, ‘Good show. Now come on, we’d better get on that bus before Toadie comes back up.’
‘What about Mouse?’ Sam protested. ‘Shouldn’t we wait in case—’
‘We can’t do anything for her right now. Let’s hope that the MO has pronounced her unfit to serve, because if he hasn’t, Toadie is going to make her life hell. It was the captain who called the MO when she saw Mouse faint. Toadie won’t like that and she’ll make Mouse pay for it.’
‘Where’s your mate today?’
Sam had been so busy checking off the items on the shelves that she hadn’t seen the nice fair-haired sergeant, and the sound of his voice made her colour up self-consciously. Not that she was imagining anything silly, like hoping he might have deliberately sought her out. She wasn’t that daft, was she? No, of course she wasn’t, she reassured herself. He was just being pleasant, that was all, and she had better not go making a fool of herself thinking any different, nor let on to anyone else that she was actually thinking of how she wouldn’t have minded one little bit if he had been.
‘She