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carelessly overlooked her presence.
    ‘What’s with Cecily?’ asked Sergeant Masters and she climbed out. I followed. The village was quiet, the couple of shops shut for lunch and the Suffolk Punch pub was only a sleepy murmur. Jim’s hat was over one ear and there was a look of confusion on his face. Private Peterson was halfway out of the canvas curtains and swinging punches.
    ‘He groped me!’ she yelled.
    ‘Not old Jim,’ I said, ‘he goes to church at Christmas.’
    ‘He’s a randy old goat!’ Cecily was livid.
    Jim tried to explain about replacing a porridge tin. Cecily wasn’t having any.
    ‘No harm done,’ I said.
    ‘He’s lousy with hormones,’ she yelled, ‘and so are you. One look at a girl in uniform and you’re all like Attila the Hun.’
    Cassidy was laughing. Sergeant Masters was frowning at Cecily.
    ‘I ain’t partial to them kind of goings-on,’ protested Jim. He was very attached to his missus, she being comely. He was also attached to his chickens, his smallholding and his fiddles. ‘See yer, Tim,’ he said, and escaped.
    ‘I’ll report that kook,’ said Cecily.
    ‘Don’t be like that, lovey,’ I said, thinking the porridge might get a mention. ‘We’re all mates together, you and us. I know there’s Hitler, and your generals and our generals, but the rest of us ought to be bosom chums, or what’ve we got that’s worth dying for?’
    ‘Am I hearing things?’ asked Sergeant Masters.
    ‘Bosom chums?’ said Cassidy, a kind of glee in her eyes.
    ‘He’s at it again,’ cried the upset Cecily. ‘Isn’t there any guy who can think of candy and blueberry pie instead of how a girl is put together?’
    ‘Wrap it up, Cecily,’ said Sergeant Masters.
    ‘Being molested, that’s got to be wrapped up?’ asked Cecily, who was better-looking than she deserved to be.
    ‘I don’t believe it was meant,’ said Sergeant Masters.
    ‘He looked a cute old guy to me,’ said Cassidy.
    I took a peek inside the van. The petrol can was there, the sacking having fallen away. Couldn’t be helped.
    When we were on our way again, Sergeant Masters said, ‘It’s none of my business, of course, but I thought porridge over here came in cartons.’
    ‘It’s the war,’ I said, ‘we’re short of cartons.’
    ‘I think I’ve got you,’ she said.
    ‘Where now?’ she asked when we reached BHQ. I indicated the orderly room. All three of them marched smartly into the mansion, leaving me lumbered with their kit. So I dumped the valises in the hall outside the orderly room in the kind of untidy heap that would make Battery Sergeant-Major Baldwin think about court-martial charges. In the orderly room, only Bombardier Wilkins was on duty. He had a well-fed portly look. He’d eaten, of course. I was growling with want. Having seen what the three Wacs looked like, Wilkins suggested I could keep an eye on the orderly room while he showed them to the ATS quarters and where to catch some eats.
    ‘I’ll show ’em,’ I said, ‘I’ll fall in half if I don’t catch some eats of my own.’
    ‘Excuses, excuses,’ said Bombardier Wilkins. ‘OK,’ he said to the Wacs, ‘Gunner Hardy will take you, but you’ll have to report back here afterwards.’
    ‘Will do,’ said Sergeant Masters crisply, ‘I believe I’m to meet up with a Top Sergeant Dawson.’
    ‘You don’t need him,’ said Wilkins, ‘you’ve met me.’
    ‘We’re touched,’ said Sergeant Masters, ‘but I’ve got orders.’
    Wilkins was on a hiding to nothing, anyway. Top Sergeant Dawson, six feet of Kansas beef, wasn’t likely to let a ravishing Wac sergeant be sucked into turmoil by a short, lumpy British bombardier.
    I took the three of them round to the Nissen hut quarters of the ATS.
    ‘Where do we get the eats?’ asked Cassidy.
    ‘Go through that door straight ahead,’ I said, ‘and ask for Mavis. If no-one answers or nothing happens, pop over to our cookhouse and I’ll fry you an egg each on a slice of