“He sure is!” Irene replied. “I wonder how many other girls have his picture. Maybe I could get one.” She got what she was after—mocking laughter.
Eve kept her voice even. “Look a little closer, Irene. He could be Audrey’s twin, right? He’s her brother—and my boyfriend.”
“You’re having me on! You’re never stepping out with the posh girl’s brother!”
“Cross my heart and hope to die if I’m lying,” she said, making the sign over her chest.
“Didn’t your mum warn you that the gentry’s sons want only one thing from girls like us? And it isn’t marriage.” There was more laughter.
Eve didn’t seem perturbed. “Think whatever you like,” she replied. “I know the truth.”
Irene stared at the pictures for another moment, then seemed to lose interest. She set them down none too gently and moved on to her next victim. Audrey released the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
Eve slid off her own bed and stood over Audrey. “You okay?” she asked.
“I suppose. Although I’m not getting anywhere with this sewing. I keep knotting the thread.”
“Let me,” Eve said, taking it. “I’ll finish your sewing if you polish my shoes.”
“Thanks.” Audrey found it much easier to polish shoes than to try to sew. “How did you learn to handle the taunting?” she asked Eve.
“The boys in school used to torment us girls all the time. I learned that if I didn’t react, they’d lose interest.” She snipped the sewing thread with her teeth, then added, “And the ones who didn’t lose interest found out that I could hold my own in a brawl.”
Audrey smiled. “You’re my hero, Eve.”
“Listen,” she said, leaning closer to whisper. “I know how you can win over Irene and all the other bullies.”
“How?”
“I’m told our pay packets come with a chit for cigarettes from the canteen. You don’t smoke but Irene does.”
The tiny measure of power helped Audrey sleep soundly that night.
She rose early the next morning for a day that began like all the rest, scrambling to get everything in order for “kit parade.” She must lay out her belongings on her properly made bed, the blanket folded just so, jacket buttons and shoes polished to a shine. Audrey stood at attention at the foot of her bed, not daring to move, praying she would pass inspection. Failure meant scrubbing the latrine floor on hands and knees. With Eve’s help, Audrey always passed. After inspection, they quick-marched to the parade ground to practice drilling until the sergeant major was satisfied. Audrey couldn’t see the point of inspections or understand how she could serve her country by marching in perfect squares. “Are we ever going to start driving?” she whispered to Eve as a misty rain began to fall.
“Let’s hope so. I know they’re desperate for ambulance drivers.”
“All right, listen up,” the sergeant major barked when the drilling ended. “Before you begin your driving courses, everyone must pass the gas drill.”
“This doesn’t sound good,” Eve mumbled. She had confided her fear of enclosed spaces to Audrey, her dread of being buried alive. Even donning her cumbersome gas mask made Eve feel trapped. It was the only fear Audrey had ever known her to admit.
“Everyone must suit up in her gas mask,” the commander explained. “We’ll go into that hut over there and the gas will be turned on. When the red light flashes, take off your mask and wait until it stops flashing. Then make your way to an exit door and run out.”
“Just don’t panic, Eve,” Audrey whispered as they pulled their masks from their cases and slipped them on. “Obviously, the gas won’t be lethal.”
“It’s this mask that’s terrifying!”
“Whenever I need to stay calm, I recite the Lord’s Prayer. You can do this, Eve.” The role reversal was new to both of them.
With her mask in place, Audrey crowded into the windowless hut with Eve and sat down beside her on one of the benches, noting where the two exits were. She took Eve’s hand as the lights went out and the room filled with an eerie gray fog, so thick she could barely see her hand in front of her face. Her fingers ached from Eve’s grip. Hours seemed to pass before the red light flashed, painting the fog with its glow. Eve released Audrey’s hand and ripped off her mask. Audrey did the same, fighting the urge to inhale a panic-stricken breath. The light flashed forever. Audrey feared her lungs would burst. She heard one of the other girls cry out. Several began to cough. The moment the flashing stopped, Audrey grabbed Eve’s hand and towed her through the pushing, shoving mob toward the nearest door, grateful in the pitch-darkness that she’d noted where it was. She found the latch and flung open the door. The chilly rain felt wonderful as she lifted her face to the sky and breathed.
“We passed!” Eve said with a shaky grin. But it took several minutes for the color to return to Eve’s face and for Audrey’s heart to slow down. A corporal rounded up the choking, weeping girls who’d failed the test, including the bully, Irene.
Afterwards, the corporal assigned Audrey and Eve to a squadron of twenty-five women. “For the next few weeks,” their new leader explained, “your training course will consist of vehicle driving, vehicle maintenance, first aid classes, anti-gas drills, and map-reading tests.”
“Driving will be easy for us,” Eve predicted with her usual confidence. Audrey thought so, too. But neither of them had counted on the difficult double-clutching that the lorries and ambulances required. The practice vans were mounted on blocks so students could learn to handle the transmissions without moving anywhere, and Audrey ground through a lot of gears on the vehicles before getting the hang of it.
As if the uniforms weren’t bad enough, they were issued ugly gray dungarees to wear for the vehicle maintenance classes, taught in garages so cold Audrey feared her fingers would freeze off. She and Eve learned to change tires and perform routine maintenance and repairs on their ambulances. Map reading taught them to navigate in their assigned districts without signs. They learned to travel on the worst types of roads, at night, with hooded headlamps, in the pitch-dark of the blackout. Through it all, Audrey was bullied, insulted, shamed, and—once in a while—praised.
“We’re fighting for our homes,” their instructor reminded them after a particularly discouraging day when everything went wrong. “There’s no time to cry for your mum.” Audrey risked a glance at Eve as she blinked away tears, wondering if Eve would shout that they’d both lost their mums, thanks to Hitler’s bombs. But Eve remained stoic.
After weeks of the most grueling work she’d ever accomplished, Audrey and the others faced a final test—driving their ambulances at night down an assigned route, wearing a gas mask and full gas-protection gear. Eve clearly grew increasingly nervous with each piece of equipment she donned. When she peered at Audrey through her gas mask, Eve had fear in her eyes. “You can do this,” Audrey said, though she wondered if Eve even understood her with her mask-garbled voice. They studied their maps a final time, then each drove away on their assigned routes.