Bluebirds by Margaret Mayhew Read Free Book Online Page B

have to do waitressing and cleaning when they were clearly capable of more. Few, though, seemed to have very high expectations and she had not understood, at first, when Winifred Briggs, the country girl from Suffolk, had asked if she would be able to work with the aeroplanes.
    â€˜You mean cleaning them? Something like that?’
    The girl had gone very red and shaken her head. It had taken quite a while to persuade her to explain what she really meant.
    â€˜I wanted to work on the engines, madam. Help look after them.’
    â€˜The
engines
?’ She had tried not to look surprised or sceptical.
A WAAF officer must cultivate understanding of, and sympathy with her airwomen
 . . . ‘Is that something that specially interests you?’
    The girl had nodded mutely. She had a fresh country complexion and soft curly brown hair. A pretty girl, shyand unworldly and unspoiled, with a lovely Suffolk way of speaking. She looked strong and capable but it was hard to imagine her working alongside RAF mechanics.
    â€˜I see . . . well, Briggs, I’m sure you’d probably make a very good mechanic but unfortunately that trade just isn’t open to us WAAFS. Of course, that doesn’t mean to say that it never will be. I believe that as time goes by more and more RAF trades will begin to accept us – maybe even that one. We shall have to be patient.’
    â€˜Yes, madam.’
    â€˜
Ma’am
, Briggs, not madam. Try to remember. In the meantime, I think you would do very well as a General Duties clerk. It’s not all that exciting but you’ll learn a lot about how the RAF is run.’
    A clerk. In General Duties – whatever that was. Filling in forms and such like, most probably. There were forms for everything in the RAF, she’d discovered that already. She’d much sooner have been waitressing or working in the kitchens like some of the others. This then was what she’d left home and Ken for . . . to be a clerk.
I want to do somethin’ useful in the war, Ken
 . . . She felt like crying again, but what was the use in that? The only thing to do was to be patient, like the officer had told her, and to make the best of things. That, or give up now and go back home to Elmbury. Nobody could stop you leaving if you were a volunteer. One of the girls had gone already. Just packed her suitcase and left. She could take the train to London and then the one to Ipswich and the bus from there home. Mum and Dad would be pleased to have her back to help out, and Ken . . . well, Ken would be happy again and not have his sad face. But if she went back home it would be giving up, wouldn’t it? Giving up before she’d even tried. And she didn’t want to do that.
I want to do somethin’ with my life first, before we settle down
. That was what she’d said to him and she wouldn’t give up.
    â€˜You’re not seriously trying to tell me that it’s a
good
thing having these females here, Robbie?’
    Squadron Leader Robinson had known David Palmer far too long to try to tell him any such thing. At least, not directly. He said soothingly:
    â€˜I don’t think it will be quite as bad as you think. Company Assistant Newman strikes me as a very sensible and efficient young lady.’
    â€˜
She
may be, I grant you, but what about the rest of them? I mean what sort of women would join the Services? Remember the reputation most of them got in the last show?’
    â€˜Oh, rather unfounded, sir, surely? The girls I came across in the WRAF were jolly good types. Put their hand to anything to help win the war. Did a marvellous job. That’s why they got the vote, isn’t it, not for chaining themselves to railings?’
    Palmer said irritably: ‘I know, I know. And it’s gone to their heads. They want to get in on everything these days just because they’re allowed to vote too. But it