Make Do and Mend

Every inch of elastic claimed for uniforms; the steel of safety pins, along with the tin foil wrappers from cigarette boxes, collected and donated for propellers and the hulls of ships – how was a girl to hold up her knickers?  Hers had been mended to within an inch of their lives when, that day, while running for a bus during blackout, she felt their inexorable slide.  Her hand darted into her pocket and through the fabric of coat and skirt, grabbed onto a fistful of cloth, hoping to collect all layers.  Success!  She would not feel the cotton, silky with age, slipping down to her ankles; not have to resort to stepping calmly out of them, nonchalantly pretending they were not her own and leaving them forlornly pooled on the pavement.