GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love (8 page)

After the ceremony they went straight in to sign the register. Then the little group went to the pub for a few celebratory drinks, before heading to the couple's favourite restaurant for the wedding feast: the local fish-and-chip shop.

The next morning, they took a train down to London for their honeymoon. Rae enjoyed giving her new husband a guided tour of her city – she showed him the Houses of Parliament, pointed out the Tower of London and took him to Hyde Park to hear the ranting men on their upturned fruit boxes at Speakers' Corner. On their way out of the park Rae paid a visit to the underground public toilet, while Raymond waited for her up on the pavement.

When she came back up the stairs, he was standing where she'd left him, but next to him was a busty redhead, one of the ‘Piccadilly Commandos' who plied their trade in the West End. Since the arrival of the Americans these prostitutes now swarmed the area around Piccadilly, Leicester Square and Park Lane, making the most of the rich pickings. At night they lined the streets around the American Red Cross club on Rainbow Corner, shining torches on their ankles to attract the soldiers, and carried out their business in shop doorways.

The girl was clearly propositioning Raymond, but as soon as she saw Rae she quickly walked off.

‘You better not leave me alone round here!' Raymond joked, putting his arm around his wife.

Back in Mansfield, it was only a matter of days before the new Mr and Mrs Raymond Wessel were parted, as Rae left for her 100–mile journey to Buntingford. She was leaving behind not only her husband, but the girls who had become like family to her: Eileen, Nancy, Irene and Helen. Rae knew she would miss her life in Mansfield terribly.

After the relative luxury of her previous billet, Buntingford brought a return to life in a Nissen hut, and the camp was muddy and cold. Rae had been sent to a Central Command workshop, much bigger than the one she was used to, and once again she was the only female welder. But this time there was no messing around with odd jobs – the Allies were gearing up for D-Day and her role was to seal over any holes in the hundreds of tanks that came in. Since many were being modified as amphibious vehicles, to be launched into the sea a couple of miles off shore, it was essential that they should be buoyant.

Rae threw herself into the work, glad to be finally making a significant contribution to the war effort, but the pressure to get the tanks out quickly was intense. One day, when she had finished working on a tank, she jumped down from the top to save time, instead of waiting for a ladder, and immediately felt a pain in her abdomen. Thinking that she must have pulled a muscle, she got on with her work, trying her best to ignore her discomfort.

But by the end of the day the pain still hadn't gone, and after a night on her hard wooden bed it was even worse. The accident also seemed to have brought on her period, and the cramps added to her misery.

Rae struggled on with her work, but after two more days she was in agony. She woke up with a fever, and the pain in her abdomen was so severe that she couldn't move.

A medical officer came to her bedside and examined her. ‘Rae,' he said quietly, ‘did you know you were pregnant?'

Rae shook her head. She was too dumbfounded to speak.

‘I'm afraid you're having a miscarriage,' the man informed her.

Rae was shocked. She and Raymond had spent so little intimate time together that the possibility of her being pregnant hadn't even crossed her mind. She had been clambering over tanks for the last six weeks. If only she had known.

Minutes later, Rae was in an ambulance speeding to Bishop's Stortford Hospital. As she lay in the back of the vehicle, every bump and pothole it went over brought her fresh agony.

By the time she got to hospital, it was clear Rae had haemorrhaged badly. For three days she was so delirious that she couldn't speak. But in her more lucid moments, lying in her hospital bed 100 miles away from her new husband, she felt utterly miserable.

When she was finally discharged, Rae was given two weeks' sick leave, but to her dismay she was not allowed to go up to Mansfield to see Raymond because of the distance. The only place she could go was back to her mother's in London.

It was a relief to be with family again, but the person she really longed to see was Raymond. Rae had kept him at arm's length when they first met, but now she found she desperately wanted him around. Fortunately, since they were married, he was able to put in a request for her to be stationed closer to him.

Rae was hoping she might be sent back to Mansfield where her friends were, and looked forward to returning to her old, happy life. But it was not to be. The best the Army could do was a post twenty miles south in Chilwell, a suburb of Nottingham. Reluctantly, Rae packed her bags and headed to the depot, which was the largest in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

At least Raymond could now visit her every weekend. The miscarriage had made her feel more connected to him, and it was good to have his big strong arms around her again.

But the reunion was short-lived, and soon Raymond was sent away to Wales for training, more than 200 miles away. Rae knew all too well what he was training for. D-Day was looming and his hospital unit would be required to deal with the inevitable casualties on the far shore. Raymond was going into the battlefield, and Rae had no way of knowing if he would ever come back.

‘Margaret Joy Boyle, will you take Captain Lawrence McCaskill Rambo to be your husband? Will you love him, comfort him, honour and protect him, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?'

‘I will.'

As she said the words, Margaret just hoped that the skirt suit she was wearing was doing a convincing job of hiding her pregnancy. She was now five months along, but thankfully it wasn't showing too much.

Her attempt at aborting the baby had failed, and she had been left with no option but to tell Lawrence everything. To his credit, he had proved a Southern gentleman in deed as well as manner, and had immediately said he loved her and wanted to marry her. She knew she was lucky – many GIs who got their girlfriends pregnant simply put in for a transfer and were never heard of again, and the army hierarchy was adept at blocking women from tracking down errant fathers.

Margaret and Lawrence had waited until after her twenty-first birthday in October 1943, so that no explanation had to be given to her parents. Not that either of them had come to the wedding. Margaret had written to her mother in Ireland but received no reply, and her father was once again overseas with the Army. Her grandmother had come up to London from Canterbury for the service. Sitting in the front pew of St Mary Abbots in Kensington she looked on disapprovingly. She couldn't understand why her granddaughter had decided to marry an American of all people.

With so few guests at the ceremony there was no reception to speak of, and Margaret and Lawrence went back to the flat he had rented for them in Pembridge Villas, Notting Hill.

Margaret knew she wasn't in love with her new husband, but by force of will she had put her old boyfriend, Taylor Drysdale, out of her head and was trying her best to focus on Lawrence instead. There were certainly things to recommend him. They had a love of books in common, and he was intelligent and charismatic. He was a decent man, and hadn't deserted her.

Moreover, he had told her that his family in Georgia owned a lot of land, so she gathered that the Rambos were wealthy. His descriptions of growing up in a beautiful white Greek Revival mansion sounded like something from
Gone with the Wind
, and Margaret began to look forward to one day going to Georgia.

Once she was married, Margaret left her job at the ETOUSA headquarters and spent most of her time sitting at home reading novels. One day in December, when she was only seven and a half months pregnant, she felt a warm liquid trickle down her leg. She looked down and to her horror realised that her waters were breaking.

She heaved herself up, walked as quickly as she could to the phone in the hall and called an ambulance. As she was rushed to Hammersmith Hospital, she was struck by the bitter irony of her situation. Trying to get rid of the pregnancy, alone in her room, had been the darkest hour of her life. Yet now, just when she was beginning to be hopeful about her future with Lawrence, she stood to lose the child.

By the time she arrived, there was nothing the doctors could do to stop the baby from coming, even though it was still in a breech position. The labour took twenty agonising hours and Margaret did her best to breathe through the waves of pain, hoping and praying that the child would survive despite being six weeks premature.

Just as the baby was finally coming, the doctor shouted, ‘Quick! She's breathing in.'

The breathing reflex had kicked in while the child's head was still in the birth canal, and she was inhaling mucus. If it went on too long she would be brain-damaged.

The doctors managed to extricate her and the cord was hastily cut before she was rushed out of the room.

‘What's happening?' asked Margaret, so weak after almost a day in labour that she could hardly speak.

‘Don't worry, Mrs Rambo. They just need to clear her tubes,' the midwife said, patting her hand.

News soon came that baby Rosamund was now breathing normally, but the doctors couldn't say what effect those first few minutes without oxygen might have had.

‘I want to hold her,' Margaret sobbed. But Rosamund was so tiny, at just three pounds three ounces, that she had to be kept in an incubator, and Margaret was not able to see her until the next day. Even then, she wasn't allowed to pick her up.

Margaret was sent home, but she had to leave Rosamund behind, and since the baby was too small to breast-feed she had to express milk for her and take it to the hospital every day.

Eventually, Margaret was allowed to take the baby home, but she felt that the separation of the first few weeks had made it hard for her to bond with Rosamund, and even harder for Lawrence to do so.

He seemed distracted and fretful, and explained that he was under immense pressure at work. He was helping to plan the equipment needed for D-Day, and was coming home later and later from the office. Margaret worried about the long hours he was putting in, and knew that having a screaming baby in the house wasn't helping. Sometimes he didn't come back until eleven or twelve at night, having gone for a drink after work, which he said was the only way he could unwind at the end of the day. He would often wake in the night and lie there tossing and turning until morning.

He also seemed to be anxious about money. When bills arrived they sent him into a fit of anxiety, and he scratched out endless sums on pieces of paper, then screwed them up and threw them into the bin. ‘Don't you worry your pretty head about it, my dear,' he told Margaret, when she asked him if something was wrong.

One day Lawrence arrived home late again, clearly already more than tipsy. He was carrying a bottle of whisky and went straight to the kitchen and poured himself a large glassful. Margaret watched in surprise as he knocked it back, then immediately poured himself another one and knocked that back too, as if it was no stronger than water.

‘Lawrence, are you sure that's a good idea?' she asked, concerned.

He turned to her, his familiar features contorted into a furious scowl and his dark-brown eyes flashing with anger. ‘Don't you go telling me what to do!' he shouted.

The baby started to cry and Margaret rushed from the room to comfort her. As she soothed the child she could feel her heart racing with fear. The man who had just spoken to her seemed like a completely different person to the husband she knew.

When the baby calmed down, Margaret crept into bed, hoping that by now Lawrence had drunk enough to fall asleep in his chair.

The next morning when he went off to work he looked a little worse for wear, but acted as if nothing had happened. He kissed her goodbye as usual and went on his way. The previous night's behaviour must have been an aberration, she told herself, and she tried to put it out of her mind.

The following night Margaret was already asleep when Lawrence came in, and they didn't have a chance to talk. But on Friday, he once again returned home tipsy and produced a bottle of whisky from his pocket. He seemed to barely notice her as he set about pouring himself a large drink.

Margaret felt instantly nervous. ‘Have you had any supper?' she asked, and when he didn't reply she quickly went to make him some food, hoping it might sober him up.

But in the meantime he had drunk half the bottle. The wild, furious look was back in his eyes, and once again he seemed transformed into a completely different person. The Southern gentleman was gone and in his place was someone she didn't recognise.

‘I don't want that!' he slurred, as she put the food in front of him. He shoved the plate away, sending it crashing onto the floor.