She said this last part while looking directly at Martha, Blanche, and Frankie, who were all sitting low in their chairs, trying to hide under their caps. I turned and caught a glimpse of Frankie’s face; she looked furious.
Other girls in the room started to squirm in their seats, whispering to each other. Viv glanced at me and rolled her eyes, fiddling with an imaginary cigarette. Dottie refused to look our way. She was a rule follower, and the buzz bombs had really gotten to her. Her olive complexion was pale, and she looked straight at the front of the room. Miss Chambers picked up every cue from her audience.
“Now, I know this all sounds harsh,” she said, gripping the lectern and scanning the room, trying to make eye contact with as many of us as she could. “But understand that you have just arrived at the doorstep of a war you’ve only experienced in newspapers. In less than two weeks, you’ll know more than ever what being close to the front lines of this conflict is like. This job is a privilege, but I promise you, it will challenge you more than anything you’ve ever done. You’ve got to be prepared. That’s what the guidelines are for; that’s what the training this week is for.”
Nobody was whispering anymore. The room was silent while the sirens outside blared on.
“If it appears you cannot abide by the guidelines,” Miss Chambers said, “or if we decide that you are not up to the assignment, understand that the Red Cross reserves the right to send you home immediately.”
I held my breath at that comment. The atmosphere was tense and uncomfortable as we all looked around at each other, very uneasy now. Nobody here wanted to go home. It wouldn’t happen to us. I would make sure of it.
“Um, didn’t we volunteer for this? And she’s threatening to send people home on the first day? Way to boost morale, don’t you think?” Viv said under her breath.
“Not exactly,” I said. “But I’m not worried about being sent home.”
Despite the warning, I still felt confident that Viv, Dottie, and I had the whole package. We had education, personality, and talents. Though Dottie was shy, I was sure she’d make up for that with her musical gifts. We would be fine.
“Fiona? Fiona, pay attention. They’re breaking us up into groups for training,” Dottie said, grabbing me by the arm. “We’re in air raid precautions first. Let’s go!”
“Jesus Christ, now I’ve seen everything!” Corporal McAllister bellowed as he walked over to Viv. She had her gas mask on and had pulled out a compact, arranging her curls fetchingly around the gray rubber. A bunch of us started laughing.
“There, that’s better,” Viv said, voice muffled behind her mask as she snapped her compact shut and put it in her pocket.
“Are you finished, miss?” McAllister asked. He was standing in front of her with his hands on his hips, chest puffing out, bald head shining in the afternoon sun. He had the weary look of a teacher who had lost all patience.
Viv gave him two thumbs up, which for no real reason made us all start giggling more. After spending the day in a first aid training refresher course and an air raid precaution lesson, we had just arrived by bus for our final session of the afternoon.
We were thirty minutes outside of London at the US military base Camp Griffiss in Bushy Park, the second largest royal park in London. In peacetime, I was sure the park was lovely, but now much of its eleven hundred acres had been transformed for the war. Its ponds and fountains had been drained and covered with camouflaged netting to hide any topographical markings from the enemy. A landing strip for small aircraft had been built, as well as multiple tank courses, and there were anti-aircraft or “ack-ack” batteries everywhere you looked.
Feeling slightly ridiculous, two dozen of us stood in a muddy open field ripe with the smell of horse manure, as we attempted to put on our gas masks. We looked like alien creatures when we finally succeeded.
It had rained the night before, and the air was so muggy my clothes were sticking to me. The corporal had us take off the masks and put them on half a dozen more times to make sure we all knew how to wear and adjust them correctly.
Two jeeps full of GIs drove by the field. When they spotted us, the soldiers leaned out the windows and started whistling and hollering. We waved and blew kisses back at them with our masks on, which made them start cheering even more.
“Settle down, ladies,” McAllister said with a grunt.
Dottie and I were watching now as the exasperated corporal helped Viv adjust her gas mask correctly for the sixth time.
“Driving lessons this week should be interesting,” I said, as I tried to pull the tangled strands of hair out of my gas mask, “given that I’ve driven, oh, three times in my life.”
I took a deep breath. Driving was the one thing that I was nervous about in all the training. I was a city girl and didn’t even have a license.
“That’s three more times than me,” Dottie answered.
“The country girls will have had much more experience than us,” I said.
“Yeah, Martha drives tractors,” Dottie said. “And she’s not the only one.”
“Hey, Boston.” Frankie came up behind us, whipping off her gas mask like she’d been doing it all her life. Her curls were sticking up in all directions.
“Frankie, what happened last night?” I asked.
“Honestly, I was ready to leave when you did, but Blanche and Martha begged me to stay,” Frankie answered, rolling her eyes. “And then we were dancing, which was fun, but, shame on me, I completely lost track of time. Would you believe that club is open around the clock? We got three hours of sleep. And did you see the look on Miss Chambers’s face? She was not happy with us. I’m still so mad at myself for agreeing to stay; I knew I should have left. I told those two that’s the absolute last time I’m ever getting on Miss Chambers’s bad side. I will not get kicked out. It’s bad enough I was rejected from the WASPs.”
“I’m not surprised Blanche wanted to stay,” I said.
“Of course she did,” Frankie said, shaking her head. “I swear the only reason that girl is here is to flirt with officers.”
“But Martha’s the one that surprises me,” I said. “I didn’t think the farm girl had it in her.”
“Oh, Martha can dance,” Frankie said. “She’s not as good as that Adele Astaire, but she was knocking it out. Where do you even go to dance in Orange City, Iowa? In the cornfields? Every guy in the place wanted a chance to jitterbug with her. Anyway, we have rooftop duty tonight, Fiona. You ready for it?” Frankie asked. I had forgotten she had volunteered me.
“Sure, Frankie,” I said, aggravated. Do I have a choice?
“All right, I want you eight,” the corporal said, picking out me, Dottie, Frankie, and Viv along with four other girls. “You’ve all been chatty; you seem ready to be the first to go through the drill in the tear gas chamber.” He pointed to the small wooden shack a hundred yards away.
“Right now?” Doris, a proper Southern girl from Alabama, said, frowning at the shed. “In our dress uniforms?”
“Yes, right now in your dress uniforms,” McAllister said, imitating her voice, Southern accent and all. “You can’t exactly take them off.”
We trooped over to the sad-looking, windswept shack as he gave us the final instructions for the tear gas test. He led us inside, and we fumbled with our masks as fast as we could, holding our breath for as long as possible. In less than thirty seconds, the corporal led us out of the other side of the shed.
Choking, gagging, shrieking, and laughing, we stumbled out of the shed and tried to remove our masks.
“Now get down low to the ground and smell for gas before removing your masks,” he said to us.
We were standing in a huge slick of mud behind the shed. We looked around at each other in our dress uniforms and just nodded to him. Nobody wanted to get too low.
“No, get down, WAY DOWN! Now!” he screamed.
The scream startled all of us, and I squatted with Viv and Dottie as Frankie, Doris, and the other three girls flung themselves down in the mud. I felt it dripping from my cheeks.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” McAllister asked them.
“You said lay down!” Frankie looked up at him. “I’m doing what you said, I’m laying down.”
“I said way down, not lay down,” McAllister said.
“Well, from under the gas mask it sounded like lay down,” Frankie said, exasperated, as she tried to push herself up out of the mud.