Past the stalls now, the girl turned and addressed her. ‘How d’you do? I’m Frieda. I’ve only been here a few weeks.’
She spoke with the same unique accent Sandra had noticed during their first encounter at the church. Sandra took in her slight figure and pale but attractive face and wondered if the lass was unwell.
Frieda sat down on a stool and, picking up a galvanised bucket, clasped it between her knees. She stretched out her arm and grasped a fake teat. ‘This is how milking is done.’
Sandra watched for a while and then had a go herself.
Once Sandra seemed to get the hang of it, Frieda told her, ‘I have to get on.’
After an hour, Sandra’s fingers, forearms and wrists ached and all she had to show for her effort was no more than a thimbleful of water.
She despaired as yet another squirt of water missed the bucket and hit the byre floor.
‘Real thing’s trickier.’ Sandra turned and looked into Mr Nichol’s woebegone expression. ‘If that there was milk’ – he eyed the puddle of water on the floor – ‘it would do a family for a day.’
Sandra hadn’t thought of it that way and accepted she must try harder. She made to grasp the udder.
‘Not now, lass.’ Mr Nichol gave an exasperated shake of the head. ‘You’ll be far more use up at house giving Mother a hand with the workers’ dinner. I’ll help here.’
Did she have I’m no better than a skivvy written on her forehead? Sandra wondered. In that moment Sandra questioned the wisdom of leaving the cosy kitchen with the good-natured cook. She’d heard gossip from the lasses as they gathered at night around the supper table about how some farmers and labourers treated Land Girls. Apparently, they thought lasses were incapable of doing a man’s job and gave them menial tasks around the farm. Their dander up, the Land Girls set out to prove the biased farmers wrong. Sandra remembered the earlier conversation with Evelyn, when she’d said people’s choices affected their lives.
So, her chin jutting, she told the farmer, ‘I’m not a housemaid. I’ve been sent to work on the farm.’
Mr Nichol looked at her in surprise. Taking off his cap, he scratched his head. ‘I never said you was.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I like a bit of spunk in a lass… Mother was the same way when she was your age.’ Then, as though he’d said too much and time was of the essence, his attitude changed. ‘After the milking’s done, help clean up. The muck is to be tipped in the midden, pigs are to be fed and cleaned out, stables mucked out and, if you’ve time after that, I can find yi’ plenty more work… on the farm.’ A hint of a grin played on his lips.
Whistling a tune, he marched up to a stall and sat on a three-legged stool.
Sandra felt she’d passed some kind of test.
The milking done, Sandra’s forearms and fingers ached like mad from practising. She stood in the byre doorway watching the old man, the clay pipe still dangling from his mouth, herding the cows head to tail up the uneven track towards the gate and the field beyond.
‘That’s Mr Jeffries,’ Frieda said. ‘He lives in the village. He only works here when Mr Nichol needs an extra pair of hands. He’s been here all the time since I’ve started.’
She went on to explain what happened once the cows were milked.
The milk had been poured over a cooler contraption and put into ten-gallon galvanised churns which stood at the bottom of the track at the farmhouse gate waiting to be collected, apparently, by a Co-op society lorry that, according to Frieda, would take it to the dairy in a place called Stocksfield.
Frieda then showed Sandra how to hose the cow shed and sterilise the milking equipment.
‘What’s next?’
‘Breakfast at the farmhouse if you want.’
‘Are you going?’
Frieda shook her head. ‘It is porridge and I’ve already had some.’
Sandra, although always ready to eat, decided to skip traipsing to the house where she didn’t know anyone or what to expect.
‘Where’s Mr Nichol?’
Sandra wasn’t afraid of the farmer exactly, but in her short lifetime she’d learnt to treat all figures of authority with respect. They had the means to change life in a heartbeat.
‘Out with the horse and cart delivering milk to villagers.’
‘Are his moods always so changeable?
Frieda shrugged. ‘Mr Nichol speaks his mind,’ she said noncommittally. ‘He’s always been good and fair with me.’
Sandra felt there was more that Frieda wasn’t telling.
Being with Frieda, who was also reticent, brought Sandra out of herself. Determined to make Frieda talk, she leant on the handle of the sweeping brush she was carrying and enquired, ‘What’s your full name?’
Frieda brushed a strand of black hair behind an ear. ‘Frieda Sternberg.’
‘What accent is that?’
‘German.’ Frieda looked unsure, as if she expected a reaction. She went on, as if preventing any further comment on the subject, ‘Normally, Antonio mucks the stables out. He helps the horseman, apart from doing other jobs around the farm.’
‘Antonio?’
Frieda’s features softened and she gave a shy smile before responding. ‘He is a prisoner from the camp in Ponteland. He comes from the island of Sardinia and was captured with his platoon by the British in Tobruk. He’s never fired a shot at the enemy,’ she put in as if to prove Antonio was a decent man. ‘He was sent to England by boat as a prisoner.’
She appeared to know a lot about this Antonio, Sandra surmised, having noticed the sparkle that came into the lass’s eyes when she spoke about him. ‘How does he get to work?’
‘Mr Nichol phones the Ministry offices in Hexham when he needs help and Antonio is dropped off by lorry the next morning, then collected at night. Only he didn’t arrive yesterday or this morning.’
The nosy side of Sandra longed to ask Frieda about herself, why she was here and where she lived. But she held back, knowing that she too would be reluctant to share her past with a stranger. She would make do with being friendly. She had warmed to this young German girl. Instinctively, Sandra knew there was a story behind Frieda’s reserved manner.
‘Frieda, can I be truthful?’ The girl looked nervous. ‘I’m new to all this. A townie. Could you help show me the ropes? I mean, tell me what’s expected as I don’t have a clue.’
A smile – of relief? – split Frieda’s face, then, her expression turning thoughtful, she said, ‘As I told you I am quite new here myself. I live at the post office with my… I think the word is… substitute… aunt and she encouraged me to work here after I left school. I too had to practise milking cows on that.’ She pointed to the contraption where the rubber dangled from the beam. How silly it looked.
Merriment bubbled within Sandra, sparked by relief that she’d found someone she could relate to, and she burst out laughing. Frieda hesitated, then, as though a bolt of understanding struck her, eyes sparkling, shoulders shaking, the lass joined in the hilarity.
When the laughter had subsided, Frieda told Sandra, ‘Don’t worry, I will show you these ropes.’
‘I must say, Frieda, you have an excellent command of English.’
A shadow seemed to fall on the lass. ‘I got… teased is the word?’ Sandra nodded. ‘At school… so then I learnt to speak perfect English.’
Sandra knew by Frieda’s solemn expression there was more to it, but she decided not to pursue the matter in case it upset her.
The rest of the morning was spent traipsing after Frieda around the farmyard and Sandra was glad of the wellingtons she’d been supplied with. She filled the pig trough with a bucketful of small potatoes. A rather scary job as she worried the huge, coarse-skinned creatures might knock her over in a frantic scramble to get the food.
As Sandra watched the snuffling pigs eat their food, she thought they probably ate better than half the population. Then, thinking of the end result, she averted her eyes guiltily as she changed the straw in their sleeping quarters. Las
tly came the job of mucking out the stables. Tired and worn out after a morning’s work, Sandra finished by collecting eggs from the hen house.
At one o’clock, dinner time, the two girls stood on a fenced-off piece of land, hen houses surrounding them. Hens clucked and walked in that peculiar stiff, head-jabbing way. A lone plane soared low overhead and two geese spreading their wings let out an ear-piercing screech and gave Sandra such a fright.
Shading her eyes with a hand, she saw the plane was a Lancaster.
‘It’s one of ours.’
Frieda let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness.’ She nodded to the eggs she carried in a bowl in her arms. ‘I’ll take these up to the house.’
‘Are we allowed in the farmhouse for dinner?’ It was nippy outside, and Sandra didn’t fancy eating in the byre.
‘Mrs Nichol provides soup for the workers but she won’t spare any tea.’
Sandra wasn’t surprised. Loose tea was a prized commodity and the weekly allowance was only four ounces.
‘The hostel provides sandwiches and cold tea,’ Sandra told Frieda as she followed her up the field. ‘A bowl of hot soup would be sorely appreciated. How about you?’
Frieda’s body tensed. ‘I… You go on without me.’ She turned and handed the bowl of eggs over to Sandra. Without another word Frieda made her way to the top of the field then hurried out of sight around the side of the farmhouse.
Taken aback, Sandra watched her go. With her slight figure and bony wrists and ankles it looked as though a gust of wind would blow her away.
Sandra thought of her mother who, with her poverty-stricken life, had been the same way. She fervently hoped the lass wouldn’t suffer the same fate. But why, if Frieda was starved, would she refuse a bowl of warming soup?
11
‘Take your wellies off or you’ll have Mother after you.’ Mr Nichol greeted her at the farmhouse back door.
Sandra removed her wellingtons and left them upside down on the rack outside with the rest, then stepped inside, bait tin in hand.
Mr Nichol went over to the sink and, turning on the cold-water tap, began washing his hands.
Two farm labourers in dungarees sat at a sturdy-legged table in the middle of the room where more places were set. Unsure what to do, Sandra surveyed the large cluttered kitchen with its stone floor and meagre fire in the range by the far wall, a black-and-white collie curled in front of it. The dark wood dresser standing in an alcove was messy with ornaments, papers and photographs. Sandra inched forward to take a better look.
‘That’s me lad, Wilf.’ Mr Nichol, drying his hands on a cloth, approached, following her gaze. ‘He didn’t want to stay on the farm and couldn’t wait to do his bit for the war.’ His chest expanded. ‘That’s Nichol men for you. Won’t shirk when duty calls. Least, that’s what I keep telling Mother.’
At that moment a woman scurried in, an efficient air about her. She darted to the range and stirred a pan on the hob. With grey hair and a forehead riddled with worry lines, she was a head shorter than Mr Nichol.
‘How many times have I told you, Mother? There’s no rush. That heart of yours won’t stand for it.’
She turned, a wooden spoon in her hand. ‘It’s you harping on about me heart I can’t stand. You cause me palpitations.’
Mr Nichol shook his head. He turned to Sandra. ‘Meet the wife, who’ – he stared pointedly at Mrs Nichol – ‘no matter what the doctor says, denies she should look after her dicky heart.’
Comprehension dawned on Sandra. ‘Your wife?’ Sandra spoke without thinking.
‘Silly old fool…’ Though Mrs Nichol looked scornfully at her husband, Sandra detected a fondness in her tone. ‘Still calls me Mother, long after our lad’s grown and… left home.’ Her voice faltered.
Mr Nichol, with a concerned look, said quickly, ‘We’re mighty proud of him, aren’t we, Mother?’
The woman shook the wooden spoon at him. ‘You, with your talk of how we won the Great War… It spurred that lad on and the farm wasn’t enough for him any more.’
There was an awkward pause before Mr Nichol said, ‘Let’s not start that again, Mother, we have company here.’
The workmen sitting at the table were listening, agog.
Mrs Nichol looked Sandra up and down. ‘Sit yourself down, you make the place look untidy.’
Sandra knew from the lasses’ chatter at the hostel that farmers’ wives could be prejudiced against Land Girls. ‘They’re worried we might steal their husbands,’ Ruby Todd had whispered to Sandra one night in the dark when neither of them could sleep. ‘Fat chance. The old farmer I worked with today was old with yella teeth and a beer belly. Ugh!’ Sandra inwardly smiled at the memory.
She volunteered, ‘I’ve brought sandwiches.’ Part of her wished she’d stayed in the cowshed, anywhere rather than here, to eat them.
‘Why? Isn’t my soup good enough?’
‘Of course. I just didn’t realise you’d provide lunch.’
‘Now, Mother, don’t take your frustration with me out on the lassie here. Just think, it’ll save on bread.’
‘Hmm!’
While Mrs Nichol began ladling the soup into bowls, her husband surreptitiously winked at Sandra.
The kitchen door opened and Mr Jeffries walked in and, with a nod to both the Nichols, he took his cap off and sat down at the table.
‘You locked the gate in the field, Joe?’
Joe Jeffries – as Sandra thought of him now – looked affronted. He must be forgetful, she thought.
‘I have. You know I always do.’
‘Except that time the bull got out,’ Mrs Nichol added.
The two workmen guffawed as they sat down at the table and the collie padded over to sit by the side of his master’s chair.
‘No point in opening old wounds,’ Mr Nichol consoled.
Mrs Nichol put their soup in front of them. By the grim look on the woman’s face, she didn’t like to be corrected.
‘Jim, Ralph,’ Mr Nichol addressed the two workmen, ‘this here is Sandra Hudson.’ He turned towards Sandra. ‘They’re labourers come to help with lambing.’
Introductions over, Sandra ate the thin chicken soup. Silence reigned in the room, apart from slurps of soup.
‘Where does Frieda go for dinner?’ she blurted, unable to bear the quiet any longer.
The Nichols looked up and then at one another.
‘There goes a mystery,’ Mr Nichol volunteered. ‘Mother thought she might go back to the post office for a bite to eat with Doris but on further investigation that isn’t the case.’
He took a thick slice of homemade bread from the plate and spread butter on it. Sandra marvelled at how in the countryside food wasn’t a main preoccupation. All her life – at home with Mam and Alf, then the orphanage and even with the Kirtons in town with the war on – food had been an obsession. She took a mouthful of sandwich, gazing longingly at the dish of butter that she hadn’t tasted in months as at the hostel they made do with margarine.
His cheek bulging with bread, Mr Nichol told them, ‘When I delivered the milk, Doris said she’d taken the girl to see Doctor Shepherd but he was useless. Apparently, the lassie won’t eat and Doris is worried sick.’ He shook his head. ‘The lassie’s probably fretting about her family in Germany.’
Mr Jeffries spoke up. ‘She’s as thin as a chip. Half the village are talking about her. I wouldn’t have thought in this modern day a lass would want to look that skinny. I mean all the pin-ups – Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth – have hips on them.’ The workmen looked at him incredulously. He was defensive. ‘I go to Hexham pictures now and then.’
‘Nobody is asking you, Joe.’ Mrs Nichol, as though she’d heard enough, stood up. ‘As for you’ – she glowered at her husband – ‘kindly don’t speak with your mouth full. And what happens at the post office is none of our business.’
‘You were only just saying how we should encourage the lassie…’
‘It was a private conversati
on, Bob.’ Mrs Nichol collected the soup bowls.
‘Didn’t you say in this war we have to look after—’
‘No more, I tell you.’
Mr Nichol stared at his wife in bafflement. He stood up and took the bowls from her. ‘Let me help you with those.’
Sandra rose to go, wondering if avoiding food was the only reason Frieda didn’t eat at the farmhouse.
Mr Jeffries brought the cows in again that afternoon. As they followed their leader into the cowshed, Sandra marvelled at their beefiness and deep cherry red colour. She noticed their engorged udders and wondered if they were painful.
She went back to the pretend udders. Her fingers ached like blazes and only a thimbleful of water at the bottom of the bucket was to show for her effort.
Then the morning’s routine was repeated. The cows milked, floor scrubbed and swilled, muck taken to the midden.
When they’d finished, Frieda turned to Sandra. ‘Antonio isn’t here…’ She paused, then blushed before quickly carrying on. ‘So our last job of the day is to groom the horses.’
Sandra noticed the awkward expression when the lass mentioned the Italian’s name, as if she had something to hide.
Frieda also looked done in, and so was Sandra, for that matter. She’d worked a ten-hour day and was so overtired the thought of horses felt like a step too far. It was one thing to see horses at a distance as they’d clip-clopped by in the cobbled street; to be only a hair’s breadth away from them was something that Sandra could do without. But she was a Land Girl, she reminded herself, this was her job. She recalled the talk at the hostel about farmers being scathing about women doing a man’s job.
The Outcast Girls: A completely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 historical novel Page 10
