As Time Goes By by Annie Groves Read Free Book Online

looked at Sam with surprisingly kind hazel eyes and said calmly, ‘Ah, our wanderer has returned has she, Warrant Officer?’ The hazel gaze skimmed Sam from head to foot and then paused thoughtfully on her face.
    ‘Took a wrong turning in the blackout, ma’am, and fell over some sandbags,’ Sam offered by way of explanation of her appearance.
    The captain nodded, then told Sam calmly, ‘Warrant Officer Sands will no doubt have informed you of the routine here. First thing after breakfast, transport arrives to take you all to your designated areas of work. You have been assigned to Deysbrook Barracks.’
    No supper! And she was very hungry, Sam realised, but of course she didn’t say anything.
    She stood stiffly at attention until the captain said briskly, ‘Dismissed.’
    At least she had escaped whatever punishment the warrant officer had no doubt been planning for her, Sam acknowledged, recovering some of her normal insouciance as she made her way to the dormitory where she had left her kitbag.
    Not wanting to disturb the other girls, she tried to be as quiet as possible but the discovery thatthe shape she could feel on the bed closest to the door wasn’t her kitbag but the sleeping body of another girl caused both her and the girl in the bed to yelp in protest, and within seconds torches were being switched on all over the dormitory as the noise woke the other girls.
    ‘Sorry, sorry …’ Sam apologised ruefully, ‘only I left my kitbag here …’
    ‘The Toad moved it,’ a girl in a bed halfway down the room informed her sleepily.
    ‘She means Warrant Officer Sands,’ another girl explained unnecessarily, since Sam had quick-wittedly recognised how appropriate the warrant officer’s nickname was. ‘Lord,’ the girl continued, ‘when she found your kitbag there without any sign of you, she swelled up so much with fury we thought she was going to burst.’
    ‘Pity she didn’t,’ someone else announced fervently. ‘Gave me jankers for a whole week, she did, just because I hadn’t got me cap on straight. Me poor hands were red raw with all that scrubbing and potato peeling in freezing cold water. You want to watch out for her: if she takes a dislike to you you’ll know all about it and no mistake.’
    ‘Go on with you, May. Give her a chance to get herself settled in before you start scaring her half to death about old Toad face,’ the girl whose bed was next to Sam’s spoke up firmly, before warning Sam, ‘I don’t want to tell you what to do, but if I was you I’d get myself into bed before Toadie comes up here checking up on you. She’s got a real mean streak to her and there’s nothingshe likes better than an excuse to come down heavy on one of us. I’m Corporal Hazel Gibson, by the way.’
    ‘Sam Grey,’ Sam reciprocated. ‘And thanks for the warning, Hazel, I mean, Corp.’ She stifled a sudden yawn. It had been a long day, and she was more than ready for her bed.
    ‘Mind you, at least Toadie’s a real live human being, not like that ghost wot’s supposed to go walking all over the place at night,’ the girl the corporal had addressed as May announced with ghoulish relish.
    ‘A ghost?’ a nervously quavering little voice from the bed closest to the door protested shakily.
    ‘Yes. Comes looking for the girl wot got him killed on account of her taking up with someone else and her new lover murdering him,’ May told them. ‘At least that’s what I’ve bin told.’
    ‘Go on with you, May. You don’t half talk a load of rubbish,’ the corporal squashed the almost palpable air of nervous tension creeping through the room, leaving Sam free to follow the corporal’s advice and make haste to get herself into the only spare bed.
    Her new dorm mates seemed a decent crowd, she reflected, especially Hazel Gibson, unlike the warrant officer, and that bossy Bomb Disposal chap. She certainly didn’t want to run into him again.

FOUR
    ‘I’m sorry that the warrant officer gave me