Wartime Brides by Lizzie Lane Page B

fighting’s moved on or after the death camps have been cleared. This is our last party before going home. Hallelujah!’ he finally exclaimed, raising his drink as high as he dared. His head was already buckled up to the ceiling.
    She didn’t press the point. Just the thought of the things she’d seen on Pathé News was enough to turn her stomach.
    The tobacco smoke that hung like a pall between people’s heads and the ceiling suddenly whirled as a current of fresh air swept in through the opening door. Like a lot of others, Polly looked to see who had come in and instantly felt a tightening in her stomach. The grey pinstripe suits, the Woodbines held at the corner of thin, grim mouths. She recognised the men from the bus and sensed immediately there was going to be trouble.
    With unconcealed arrogance, they pushed their way through the crowd of American uniforms, disdainfully slapping shoulders, glaring their intentions rather than asking if they could be allowed to get to the bar.
    Polly nudged Mavis. ‘Looks like trouble.’
    Mavis eyed the blokes from the bus. To Polly’s disgust she smiled, patted her hair, and made it obvious to a weak-chinned individual with pale blue eyes that she had appreciated his earlier attention – definitely more so than that of the man she was with.
    ‘I think I was here first,’ said the pale-eyed young man, the shoulder pads of his demob suit moving independently of his flesh due to the fact that it was at least two sizes too big.
    Polly swallowed nervously, put her drink down on the counter, and grasped Mavis’s arm.
    ‘Time to go, Mav.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ simpered Mavis, her gaze firmly fixed on the scrawny specimen who squeezed himself purposefully between her and the GI who had bought their drinks.
    Strong brown fingers and a broad palm folded over the other man’s shoulders and for a moment Polly imagined she was seeing bones being crushed. Yet she couldn’t hear anything breaking. Then she almost laughed when she realised why. The shoulder pads again. But her amusement was stifled by the fear of imminent violence.
    She nudged a knee into Mavis’s shin. ‘Let’s go.’ There was no response.
    ‘I think I was here first, buddy,’ said the GI, his twang typical of the American voices she’d heard since a few months after Pearl Harbor.
    ‘You’re wrong,’ said the guy with the big suit, his back to the American.
    ‘No way, man,’ said the black man in a thoughtful and meaningful way. ‘I can prove I was first here ’cause I bought that drink there.’ He indicated the gin and orange sitting in front of Mavis.
    The man in the demob suit reached nonchalantly for the drink. ‘Well, it’s gone, ain’t it?’ With that he flung the contents of the glass into the GI’s face. Droplets flecked the black man’s forehead and trickled down his cheeks. His mouth straightened into a grim line. A breathless hush fell over the packed bar as all eyes turned to the trouble spot.
    Polly could almost smell the blood lust, young men aching to prove who was Cock of the Walk.
    ‘Cool it!’ someone said. Another brown hand stayed the arm of the man with the liquid running down over his face.
    It won’t last, thought Polly. She’d seen it before all too often, one man supposedly backing down, then turning back, lashing out with a fist or a broken bottle, and all hell letting loose.
    She grabbed Mavis’s arm. ‘Come on! Let’s split.’ Her exclamation, borrowed from the friendly invaders, had no impact whatsoever on moony-faced Mavis.
    ‘No! I wanna stay,’ and, to Polly’s disgust, like an oversized eel Mavis wriggled out of her grasp, her eyes shining with expectation.
    ‘You bitch,’ Polly said under her breath. ‘Opening them wide for the bloke that gets bashed the most are you! And I don’t mean yer bloody eyes!’
    For a moment Mavis looked hurt, but it didn’t last long. She was positively beaming because two men looked about to fight over her.