In Another Time

Maisie awoke with a start. A drum! Some blighter was beating a bloody drum inside their hut, and on the morning after a late night too!

The usual routine of being woken up at dawn by Old Crabby’s incessant whistle blowing from outside the dormitory was bad enough, but being dragged from deep sleep after a dance by an apparent crash of drums from inside the hut was a hundred times worse.

And now there was shouting too.

“Come on, ladies of Hut C, up you get! Sooner you’re up, the sooner it’s over.”

Maisie was still trying to cling to the last threads of a dream about dancing in the strong arms of a dark-haired man.

“What time is it, for goodness’ sake?” Dot croaked from the next bed over, and Maisie’s dream dancing was done.

“No idea,” replied Maisie, lifting her head blearily from the pillow and squinting toward the far end of the hut, where she saw Phyllis Cartwright, the tallest, strongest, and most athletic of all the WTC recruits, striding along, banging on the end of each bedstead with a stick. So, no drums, after all, just Phyllis with a bloody thunderstorm on a stick. “But whatever time it is, Phyllis has clearly taken leave of her senses.”

“We’ve all had enough of these aches and pains,” Phyllis bellowed, “so from now on, we’ll start each day with some calisthenic exercises to warm up the muscles and get us all ready to work.”

Maisie dropped back onto her pillow with a loud groan.

“But why today? We didn’t get to bed until after midnight.”

“None of that now, Maisie.” Phyllis was standing over her now. “This was your idea, after all.”

The groaning spread quickly around the room.

“My idea?” Maisie protested. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“Yes, you did, Maisie. Yesterday, you said to me how everyone was still aching, and how hard Dorothy here was finding the physical work each day because of her weak muscle tone.”

“You said I was weak?” Dot glared at Maisie. “I’m not weak.”

“No, of course I didn’t say you were weak,” Maisie said quickly, “I only said that you’d never done this kind of intensive physical activity before, you know, because you didn’t play sports at school. That’s what you told me the other day, that your school didn’t even have hockey or tennis or anything.”

“No, I didn’t have much tennis during my childhood,” replied Dot, and Maisie caught a very un-Dot-like bitterness in her voice. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m—”

“Dot! Honestly, I didn’t tell anyone that you’re weak. This is just Phyllis—”

“This is just Phyllis doing her job,” Phyllis interrupted, striding off around the room again, banging on any bed with an occupant still buried under the blankets. “I’m making sure you are all given the chance to develop your strength now, so that you won’t struggle with the heavier stuff later, once you are out in a real camp, taking down real trees. I’m a fully trained physical fitness instructor, remember—five years teaching at Morrison’s Academy in Crieff, then another six at the Edinburgh Ladies’ College—so don’t go thinking I’m only a pretty face.”

Phyllis gave one of her wide rumbling belly laughs, and most of the women in the hut joined in. Phyllis’s face would never be described as pretty—handsome, yes, even striking, but not pretty—but that was something she seemed quite proud of.

Phyllis’s enthusiasm was infectious, because despite the early hour, soon everyone from Hut C was standing in uneven ranks on the wide expanse of driveway outside Shandford Lodge, stretching and jumping, bending and running on the spot.

Women from some of the other huts must have been disturbed by the rumpus, because they appeared up the hill in ones and twos to see what was going on, and some even joined in.

Finally, after half an hour that felt to Maisie like a week, Phyllis took pity on them and released them to get breakfast.

To Phyllis’s credit, the atmosphere in the dining hall was far livelier and more engaged than it had been any morning so far. The women were chatting and laughing, and some were singing along to music from the wireless in the corner. Again, Maisie realized that the exercise, like the dancing, had warmed her muscles to the point where she wasn’t even feeling the aches and strains that had been her constant companion since training began. Now, if she could just work out where to find some pig fat for her hands …

Just then Old Crabby appeared at the door, interrupting the merriment, her very presence demanding silence. She held up a wide, flat basket, tipping it forward for everyone to see.

“Postcards!” she shouted in a voice more suited to an army drill square than a dining hall. “If any of you want to do your family duty, may I remind you that recruits’ mail will be picked up and taken to the post promptly every Saturday morning at nine o’clock. So if you want to write a postcard home, do it now, ladies. They’re already stamped, which will cost you tuppence.”

She slammed the box down onto the nearest table and picked up an old tobacco tin with a slot cut in the lid. “Honesty box is here for the tuppences. Of course, if you are literate enough to write a proper letter home, you can come now to my office. Letter stamps are tuppence ha’penny.”

As Miss Cradditch turned smartly and left the room, there was a scramble of hands trying to grab one of the postcards and a stubby little pencil from the basket, and a tinkle of coins dropping into the tin. Several women got up and followed Old Crabby out of the door, each holding at least two or three thick envelopes.

Maisie stared at the basket, wondering if today was the day she should write a postcard home to her parents. She’d sent no word back since she’d walked out of the front door of the home she’d lived in for all seventeen years of her life, her father’s hurtful words still ringing around the tiled hallway. She wasn’t even sure they would know which part of Scotland she was doing her training in. All the letters from the WTC had been addressed to her by name, and since her parents had been so furious with her for signing up, they’d refused even to look at the information she had been sent. It was only at the last minute, as Maisie was standing in the front hall with her suitcase, that her mother had softened, if only marginally. She’d come out of the kitchen holding a brown paper bag, which she held out to Maisie.

“Here’s a sandwich for the journey. It’s only fish paste, but that’s all there is. And I’ve given you an apple and your ration of cheese for this week. You can get a cup of tea at the station.”

Maisie had taken the bag with a tight-throated thank-you and had stepped forward in the hope that her mother might embrace her, but her mother stayed where she was.

“Will you at least walk me to the bus stop?” Maisie had asked.

“The fact that you’ve chosen to leave home before you’ve even finished your schooling”—her mother hit the well-worn track without hesitation—“suggests you have no desire to spend any more time with us than you must.”

“Mother, please let’s not do this again.” Maisie had tried not to sigh. “I’d like it very much if you’d all walk with me to the bus stop. Thank you.”

Maisie’s sister, Beth, had been the only one who had seemed in the slightest bit excited for Maisie. Perhaps she was already envisaging her own escape from their parents—she was almost sixteen, after all. As if to prove her support, Beth had already had her shoes on and had been grabbing her coat from the hall stand.

“Shall I get your coat too, Mother?” Beth had asked.

Father’s voice from the dining room had not been loud, but it had been crystal clear. “Your mother will not be needing her coat. And neither will you, Elizabeth.”

“But, Dad,” Beth had begun, “what if there’s rain?”

“Put. The coats. Away.” Maisie’s father’s tone had been unmistakable, a command that was to be followed without question. But as she always did, Beth had pushed back.

“But surely—”

“Elizabeth! Your sister has decided she is mature enough to ignore the wishes of her parents and sign herself up for some ridiculous venture with women who clearly have no more sense than she does. She must therefore be mature enough to get herself there alone, so put the coats away, and go help your mother in the kitchen.”

Suddenly he had been at the dining room door, and without even glancing in Maisie’s direction, he’d stalked past his daughters and his wife to his study door. There he’d stopped, his fingers on the brass knob.

“I will not repeat myself again, Elizabeth. Your sister can see herself out. You have breakfast dishes to wash.”

So Maisie had walked to the bus stop alone, and she had not written home since.

Maisie sighed as she looked at the basket of cards. She knew she ought to send something, at least to Beth. It hadn’t been Beth’s fault their parents had reacted so badly, but even so, that morning might have been the first time in years that quarrelsome and complaining Beth had ever supported Maisie in an argument. With two and a half years separating the girls, arguments had been routine, and it was usually Beth who started them.

No, Maisie did not even want to write to Beth.

Now feeling grumpy, Maisie picked up the plates and cups in front of her and Dot, and cleared them onto the pile of dirty dishes stacked on the serving counter. Dot’s nose was still buried in a book, as it was most mornings over breakfast, and all the other women around her were scribbling on their cards. Dot didn’t ever send mail home either, Maisie had noticed, though the one time she’d mentioned it, Dot had evaded her question and quickly changed the subject. Since Maisie had no desire to share details of the misery of her own home life either, she’d let the matter drop.

A sharp stab of pain and a spurt of warm pus across her palm made Maisie realize that she’d been distractedly digging her thumbnail into one of the large blisters on her left hand. Hoping no one else had noticed, she dabbed at her palm with the corner of her handkerchief. She ought to wash her hands, but she was sure that the harsh carbolic soap was partly to blame for her blisters since it dried out her skin, which was already in trouble from its first exposure to an outdoor life. So if she wanted to avoid washing her hands so much, what she needed was …

Maisie changed course and sidled a little nervously toward the kitchen. Old Crabby had made it clear on the first day that Mrs. McRobbie’s culinary domain was not to be entered without invitation. Mrs. McRobbie was the cook for Shandford Lodge, and was married to the old woodsman, Mr. McRobbie, who had been their primary instructor for all the ax and saw cuts, and also for tool care. He also had an encyclopedic mind when it came to all things flora and fauna in the woods around the lodge, something that Maisie had already found useful when faced with a patch of stinging nettles or if one needed to know, as Helen had the week before, whether the snake wrapping itself around one’s boot was a venomous adder or a benign grass snake. Although Mr. McRobbie tried to be gruff and miserable with them, no one was convinced by the act. His wife’s reputation, however, was truly fearsome, and so Maisie knocked gingerly on the doorframe before her toes had even crossed the kitchen threshold.

“Mrs. McRobbie?” she called tentatively.

There was a rustling and shuffling from beyond the pantry door, and the cook appeared, her tiny frame dwarfed by the enormous sack of flour she was carrying.

“Oh, here, let me help,” said Maisie as she dashed forward and wrestled the sack out of Mrs. McRobbie’s arms. “Where shall I put it for you?”

The cook pointed over to the far counter and Maisie laid the flour down. Hoping this favor might make Mrs. McRobbie more open to a request of help, Maisie quickly asked her question. “Do you have any spare pig fat I could have?”

The older woman gazed at her for a moment. “Pig fat?” she replied. “You mean lard?”

“Oh, well, if lard is pig fat, then yes, lard. Please, if you have some to spare. I have money.”

“Show me,” said Mrs. McRobbie, putting out her hand.

Maisie dug her sore hand gingerly into her pocket to find some coins, uncertain of how much pig fat might cost.

“Not your money, girl! Show me your hands.”

Maisie could see now that the cook wasn’t asking for payment but was holding out her hand, palm up, as John Lindsay had done. Self-consciously, Maisie laid her own hand on top as Mrs. McRobbie leaned forward, clicking her tongue and shaking her head.

“You’re in a wee bit of a mess there, aren’t you? But I’m sure I can find you some lard, if that’s what you think’ll work.”

“That’s what I was told would work,” Maisie said, following the cook into the pantry, “by one of the American chaps we met at the dance last night. He said I should mix it with some Vaseline and smear it on the blisters.”

“An American, was it?” said the cook, as she drew back a white muslin cloth and cut into the large oblong of white fat it covered. “I didn’t know that there were any Americans around here. Were they not the Canadians?”

“Canadians?”

Mrs. McRobbie had retrieved a crumpled sheet of brown paper and was folding it around the white block. “Aye, there’s a whole bunch of Canadian lumberjacks up the road a piece, working on the old laird’s estate, clearing it for another army camp, from what I heard.”

“Oh, I’m not sure,” Maisie said, “maybe.”

She remembered that Mary had said that they were Americans, but had John said that himself? Perhaps not. And then it occurred to Maisie that she hadn’t even bothered to press him further on what he’d been doing to get blisters that matched hers, or about where he was from. In fact, she hadn’t asked him anything about himself at all. Her mother would not be pleased if she knew that, because according to her, a lady should always use the eighty–twenty rule when talking to a gentleman.