Cousins at War Read Free

laugh this morning. You know I told you a new apprentice was starting? Well, he got the usual works from the boys. First of all, old Crookie . . .’
    ‘Crookie?’ Gracie looked puzzled. She thought she knew all the men’s names by this time.
    ‘Dougie Cruickshank, you’ve heard me speaking about him. He’s a grim-faced bugger . . .’
    ‘Neil!’ The reprimand shot out from his shocked mother. ‘I don’t allow swearing in this house, you should know that.’
    ‘Sorry, Mum, I forgot. As I was telling you, Crookie’s a grim-faced . . . blighter, but he’s an awful joker, and he told Harry, that’s the lad that started today, to go
and ask the storeman for a left-handed screwdriver and . . .’
    ‘I didn’t know there were left-handed screwdrivers.’
    ‘There aren’t, that’s what was so funny, and the storeman played along with Crookie. He sent Harry to ask the foreman for a long stand and promised to have the screwdriver
looked out when he came back.’
    ‘What do they use a long stand for?’
    ‘Och, Mum, you’re as ignorant as Harry. He stood for about half an hour beside the foreman before it dawned on him they were making a fool of him, but he took it in good part. All
new apprentices have to put up with things like that.’
    ‘I don’t think it was very nice of the men to do that.’
    ‘It’s just for a laugh, Mum.’
    ‘Taking the rise out of a young boy doesn’t sound much of a laugh to me, and I’m not sure if that’s a decent place for you to be working. I just hope the men don’t
teach you any more bad language.’
    ‘Ach, Mum!’
    Neil’s lunch break lasting only three-quarters of an hour, he had to go back to work before Patsy and Joe came in at one, but Gracie recounted the incident to them and was quite put out
when Joe roared with laughter. Patsy, like herself, was sorry for Harry, although her father told them it was the usual practice for time-served tradesmen to play pranks on new apprentices.
    ‘I’ll never understand men’s mentality,’ Gracie declared, making Joe laugh even louder.
    Neil was not in a good mood when he came home for lunch at twelve, two days later. Gracie took one look at his lowering brows and said, ‘What’s wrong with you? Were you at the end of
the teasing today? Now you’ll know what it feels like.’
    ‘It wasn’t anything like that. It’s Olive. She was waiting for me when I came out, and she was determined to walk home with me, though I told her to get lost.’
    ‘I told you not to be nasty to her, Neil.’
    ‘It didn’t bother her. I wouldn’t let her put her arm in mine though she tried to, but the lads were all laughing at me for walking up the road with a schoolgirl, and I bet
I’ll get a right earful when I go back.’
    ‘She’ll not bother you again if you’ve upset her.’
    ‘She’d better not!’ Neil said, darkly. He’d been mortified to see the bottle-green clad figure waiting for him outside the yard. ‘She looked like a top-heavy
cucumber with feet,’ he spat out in disgust.
    When Patsy came in, she was so excited about her promotion from office girl to junior typist that Gracie said nothing to Joe about Neil’s upset, but she worried all afternoon in case Olive
was getting too fond of him. He wouldn’t find it easy to brush her off, and she might cause trouble.
    At teatime, Neil cuffed his sister lightly on the cheek when he heard her news. ‘Good for you. You’ll soon be in charge of that office.’
    Anxious to know what had transpired after the interlude at lunchtime, Gracie asked him, ‘Did anybody say anything when you went back?’
    His face split into a grin. ‘Nothing I wasn’t expecting. I just laughed when they said I was cradle snatching, and they soon got tired of tormenting me.’
    ‘Aye,’ she agreed. ‘That was the best thing to do.’
    Joe and Patsy were loud in condemnation of Olive when they learned what she had done, but Neil said, ‘I was rattled at the time, but I’ve cooled