Chapter 3

That next morning brought with it a dark and gloomy mood, not unlike the rain pouring down outside. Maggie thought that because of the rain it might give her some leniency in going to the Red Cross office in London but Father made it very clear that it was his intention to go ahead with his plans when he had Henrietta bring Maggie her breakfast not long after six. Being the end of summer it was light at that time but with the dark rain clouds it gave the day a gloomy appearance which made Maggie want to pull her covers over her head and just wish the day could be at the end rather then the beginning.
Please Lord; don’t let this happen to me. Why do I have to join the Red Cross? I want to help but can’t I just do it from the comfort of my own home.
When Maggie came down the stairs George was already dressed in his uniform and on the phone. He was nodding a lot and writing a few things on to a scrap of paper. When he saw Maggie coming towards him he hastily said
“Thanks very much Gregory, I think I understand a bit better now. I’ll be sure to let you know what comes about.”
Maggie was intrigued as to know what was so important that George should be out of bed early on his last day before he had to report for duty. She was about to ask him but then remembered that today of all days she did not care what was going on in anyone else’s life all she cared about was that today would be her last day before her life was all over. She knew that she would be working her fingers to the bone, which didn’t bother her so much but she was also expected to give up her social life for the good of the organisation. She would be spending her time looking after the sick and wounded but then she would also be expected to spend her time sorting through endless boxes of clothes, blankets and food stuffs that was to be sent to the boys at the front. It would hardly be a very exciting life. The more she thought about it the more distress Maggie started to become again. What kind of life am I about to begin? First I am going to be stuck in run down hospital watching death and destruction all around me, then I’m losing all my friends because I will have to use all my spare time doing other chores for the Red Cross. And then after the war I will probably be stuck with marrying Timothy and live a boring life until I am old and decrypted and just waiting to die to relieve my boredom.
Maggie knew that she was sounding like a spoilt child but she was young and she wanted to do fun things like her friends and George was doing. George was going off to see the world; at least Europe would be a new and exciting experience. Why couldn’t she be doing something like that? And just then a thought occurred to Maggie. She closed her eyes thinking, maybe there was a way to still help like her father was demanding of her but also a way of her going out and having some fun along the way. If she could carry out her plan then she might even be willing to come back and marry Timothy after the war. That was it, Maggie decided, while she was young she would live the exciting adventurous life, why was it necessary to stay in Berkshire or even England for that matter to help ‘the boys at the front’, if she was going to be seeing death she was prepared to run head first towards it.
Now there was just the small matter of getting around her parents.
This turned out not to be as difficult as she first thought it would. Well the getting around them part. She had convinced her father that she had come around to the idea about helping out during the war and that if it was okay she would like to spend the day in London with George, who would then help her register.
George was more difficult to handle as he thought her plan to join the army was at first a joke and then secondly a fool-hearty idea. Maggie asked him why it was such a bad idea for her when he had already done the very same thing himself.
“Because Maggie, I am an engineer, they need my expertise. It won’t be so hard for me because I won’t be at the front fighting, I will be behind them repairing”.
“And that is exactly what I can do too. You can repair machines and tanks. I can repair the men who drive them”.
George was becoming very frustrated with his young sister. He knew that she could be as stubborn as their father and George could feel himself losing the arguement. He disputed that joining the army was not what Father had had in mind and that Father would not let her go and so she would be wasting everyone’s time. Maggie made it very clear
“I am over eighteen years old George, if I join the army there will not be a thing that Father could do about it”. And with that Maggie quicken her steps down the street towards an all too familiar building. This was where George had signed up, when he first entered the building a few months ago he had no idea that a woman’s army even existed let alone Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Service.
One the day that George had signed up he remembered a young couple arguing on the footpath outside the building. It wasn’t hard to guess that what the arguing was about, the young man was probably no older than eighteen and it was clear he was about to enlist in the army and what was also very clear was that she did not want him to. She was weeping without any care as to who was watching, she had his arm and was pleading for him not to go inside. One older lad made a jibe towards the young man about how once he joins the army he won’t have to worry about being so hen-pecked by his girl even though her whines were very loud they wouldn’t reach to Europe.
At this the young man rifted his arm away from the poor young girl and he marched into the building. She just stopped and watched him go, it was clear to her that he was not going to back down now. But what really surprised George was what had happened next. He could see her light blue eyes squinting towards the door as if she was trying to read very small writing. It was hard to describe the look that her face then relaxed into. She suddenly seemed very sure of herself; he would hardly have believed her to be the girl he had just seen sobbing not more than a few minutes ago. She pulled her hair back out of her eyes and smoothed down her smart green suit, she then did something that to George made it very clear was her intentions were, one finger at a time she took off her white gloves and folded them over and put them into her purse. George knew from personally experience that whenever a woman took off her gloves that she meant business. With one last deep breathe in she marched up the stairs and in to the building. George by now was watching the action without any polite social constraints and he ran up the steps after her to see what was going to happen next. He could see that her boyfriend, if that was what he was, looked towards her with a pleading look in his eyes thinking that she was about to cause another great commotion, it was then that he realised that she was not walking towards him but that she was walking towards another part of the room, towards another queue.
By now it was all too clear to George what this head strong girl was about to do and he hastily joined the end of the queue that enlisted those who were signing up to be Lieutenants or above. He didn’t need to turn around to see the look of horror on the poor young man’s face when he realised that she too was going to enlist her services to the country.
George was now imagining that look times by five once the family and Timothy had found out what Maggie was doing. Mother would probably have a nervous break down throwing her hands up in the air and screaming for God to take her now because her baby girl was going to die out on some dirty battle field and that she didn’t want to live to see it. Mother would have made a great actress if she had been given the opportunity and her hysterics were an all too familiar scenes that most in the family never really paid them much mind. George was most concerned with his father’s reaction.
George had just one last chance to change Maggie mind and so he ran up the stairs and into the building searching out signs for the QARANS. When he found the door he saw her, she was sitting there in her Sunday best suit, the brown one with the ever so slight black and red checking through it. Her back was up straight and she was studying the papers in front of her. George called out
“Maggie, are you sure this is what you want to do?”
Maggie turned around looking deep into her brother’s chocolate coloured eyes, she loved her brother and she knew that his intentions were good. Maggie had made her decision, she wasn’t going to let the world go by and not live a life that held some excitement and adventure beyond marrying Timothy.
“I’ve made my decision George”. And with that Maggie signed her name across the bottom of the paper.