Bluebirds by Margaret Mayhew Read Free Book Online

don’t mind it.’
    â€˜Don’t you?’ Enid looked surprised again. ‘It gets on my nerves. I don’t know how I’m going to stand it, going on all the time.’
    â€˜I expect you’ll get used to it.’
    â€˜I’m sure I won’t. And there’s another thing . . . somebody told me we’ll all have to get our hair cut short. It’s got to be above the collar. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Terry’ll be ever so upset if I have to. He says it’s a woman’s crowning glory and he likes it long like this.’
    Winnie looked at Enid’s straight, mouse-brown hair doubtfully. It straggled wispily on her shoulders. ‘P’raps you could pin it up, or somethin’. I expect they’d let you do that.’
    â€˜I don’t know how. It’s all right for you, isn’t it? You don’t have to worry about yours.’
    Winnie felt guilty about her own short, naturally curly hair. And she also felt guilty about not having a fiancé who might be sunk at any moment and who couldn’t swim. It seemed odd to her to be a sailor and not be able to swim. As odd as being in the WAAF and not liking the sound of aeroplanes. But she said nothing and started to eat her fried bread and baked beans.
    Further up the table, Susan Courtney-Bennet said to Anne: ‘I say, where were you at school?’
    â€˜A place called St Mary’s.’
    â€˜
The
St Mary’s? The one in Berkshire?’
    â€˜That one. But I got chucked out.’
    â€˜Heavens, how dreadful! What on earth for?’
    â€˜Smoking. I got caught three times.’
    Susan blinked. ‘Well, you did rather ask for it then, didn’t you? It was awfully silly of you.’
    â€˜Actually, I was glad to be out of there. I hated the place.’
    â€˜But weren’t your parents frightfully upset?’
    â€˜They were at first. But they got over it.’
    â€˜I don’t think mine ever would. I was at Parkside. I don’t remember anyone ever being expelled from there . . . it’s a terrible disgrace, isn’t it?’ Susan picked up her knife and fork. ‘I say, this fried bread is all burned on one side. Honestly! Who on earth does their cooking?’
    â€˜RAF cooks, I suppose.’
    â€˜I’m Cordon Bleu trained. I expect they’ll want me to do dinners in the Officers’ Mess – banquets, all that sort of thing . . .’
    Anne somehow doubted it. Nothing so far had led her to believe that the RAF had any intention of letting themdo anything other than the most boring drudgery. She wondered what dreary job she would be given, and wished she’d joined the ATS, like Kit had suggested. When she had tagged onto the end of the long queue of volunteers in the street, she had thought it was for the Army. It was only when she reached the top and was interviewed by a dragon-like woman in a blue uniform, not khaki, that she had realized that she was volunteering for the Air Force. After all the waiting, she couldn’t be bothered to change. The dragon had asked a lot of questions about what she could do. Could she cook? Could she type? Could she drive? She couldn’t do any of those things but it had seemed better not to admit it. She had said she could cook – well she had once boiled an egg – and the dragon had written that down. There had been forms to fill in and sign and she had found herself promising to serve for four years, or the duration of the war, to serve in any part of the United Kingdom, or abroad, to obey all orders given by a superior placed in authority over her, and to perform any work required of her by her superior officers. When she thought about it now, she decided that she must have been mad to promise any such thing. Being in the WAAF was probably going to be even worse than being at school. At least at St Mary’s they had not had to do the sort of