THREE

      ‘Well, I’ll tell you something for nothing, young Molly, you’re not gonna be the only one sporting a new engagement ring this weekend,’ Irene Laidlaw announced on Monday morning when the other machinists had all finished examining Molly’s ring, ‘seeing as how so many young men have received their papers. Of course, it’s different for me,’ she added loftily, ‘since my Alan was one of the first to volunteer …’

      ‘Probably because he wanted to get away from her,’ one of the other girls muttered, causing a ripple of giggles to spread across their small enclosed work space, with its sewing machines and air smelling of new cloth.

      Although she had no official senior status, it was accepted by the other girls that Irene was their leader. She had been working there the longest and, although opinionated, was a kind soul and the first to befriend a girl new to the factory and help her settle in.

      All the girls worked in pinafore coveralls to prevent bits of thread and cotton from clinging to their clothes. And at least Hardings, unlike some of the factories, had windows big enough to let in proper daylight so that the girls weren’t straining their eyes as they bent over their machines.

      ‘I’ll be glad when we’ve finished this bloomin’ bloomers order, and start workin’ on sommat a bit more glamorous,’ one of the girls complained with a noisy sigh.

      ‘Aye, I can’t see your Bert getting excited about you tekkin’ home a few pairs of these to surprise him wiv, Janet,’ the girl working next to her grinned cheekily. ‘I’m sick to me back teeth of ’em meself.’ She too sighed as she surveyed the mound of bloomers waiting to be made up.

      The girls were three-quarters of the way through a big order for ‘quality undergarments’, which in reality meant enormous pairs of bloomers as favoured by older women, and equally utilitarian brassieres. The kind of corsets favoured by most middle-aged women were supplied and made by specialist mail-order firms so that customers could be measured for them in the privacy of their own homes, and were so expensive that it was rare for the women Molly and June knew to own more than a best corset and a spare.

      ‘Pity it’s not some of them fancy French knickers we’re mekkin’ up,’ Janet said longingly.

      ‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you getting a pattern from Lewis’s and making yourself some, Janet,’ June pointed out briskly. She already had her eye on a nice piece of selvedge material. She reckoned she could get three pairs of drawers out of it if she got Molly, with her clever fingers and good eyes, to cut them for her. If she was very lucky she might be able to come by enough fabric to get Molly to make her a matching brassiere as well. There was a strict list that allowed each girl one piece of spare or unused fabric from any one contract, and the only way to get more was to ask one of the other girls to do a swap or to sell off her piece. Perhaps she’d ask Molly to let her have hers, June decided.

      ‘’Ere, guess what?’ another of the girls demanded breathlessly, as she came hurrying into the room. ‘I was just happening to be standing outside the office and what should I hear—’

      ‘Come off it, Ruby. Admit it, you was listening on purpose,’ May teased her.

      ‘Do you want to know what I heard, May Dunning, or do you want to wait until old man Harding tells you?’ Ruby demanded.

      ‘Go on then, tell us,’ May gave in.

      ‘Well, old man Harding was talking to his missus, and saying as how they gorra take on more machinists, because of the Government wanting him to make a lorra stuff, like, for the army.’

      ‘What, you mean uniforms?’ May demanded excitedly. ‘Cor, that will be a change from stitching bloomers. Just imagine the chaps as’ll be wearing them: all fit and handsome, like …’ May was notorious for having an eye for the men and often regaled them with saucy tales on a Monday morning of the latest man she’d met over the weekend.

      ‘They might be fit and handsome when they first put on their uniforms, but they won’t be for very long. Soon they’ll start coming home dead, just like my Thomas …’ The high-pitched emotional voice that joined the conversation belonged to Hannah Carter, the oldest and normally the quietest of the machinists, a small spare woman who had been widowed at the end of the First World War. Everyone turned to look at her with varying degrees of consternation or accusation.

      ‘’Ere, Hannah, there’s no call for you to be saying stuff like that, and upsetting people,’ Sheila Williams protested, her already florid complexion turning even pinker.

      ‘Yes, there is. You don’t know what it’s going to be like, but I do. You don’t know how it feels to send your husband off to war and never see him again.’ Hannah had started to cry in earnest now.

      Molly went over to try to comfort her.

      ‘Watch out. Boss is on his way,’ one of the girls called out, and immediately they all hurried to their machines so that by the time the door opened to admit a grey-haired middle-aged man and the thin-faced woman accompanying him, the room was filled with the sound of treadle machines busily stitching.

      Robert Harding rang a small hand bell as a signal to the women to stop work, and then announced importantly, ‘From today we’re going to be making some changes at Hardings, on account of us being called on by the Government to make uniforms for our brave soldiers.’

      ‘What kind of changes?’ Irene demanded sturdily.

      ‘Well, for one thing we’re going to be taking on more machinists, and for another, Miss Jenner here is going to be in charge of all you machinists, to make sure that the uniforms are made to the proper standard.’

      Molly gave a small shiver as she looked at the thin, hard-eyed woman standing at Robert Harding’s side, surveying them all with unsmiling grimness. There was something about her that sent a chill right through Molly.

      ‘All right, back to work, everyone.’

      The sharp command was given almost before the door had closed behind Robert Harding, and although the girls obediently bent over their work, Molly was anxiously aware that some of them, June included, were not likely to take very well to Miss Jenner’s arrival. It sent another shiver of apprehension all the way down Molly’s spine to know that the supervisor was patrolling the narrow aisles between the rows of machines, standing behind each of them in turn to observe their work. Up to now Molly had liked her job. She was a good machinist, quick and deft, but with the cold censorious weight of Miss Jenner’s gaze on her back she was all fingers and thumbs.

      ‘So when are we gonna be starting working on these uniforms, then, Miss Jenner?’ May asked