The Land Girls at Christmas

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Of course. I’m here, aren’t I?’ Happy, bowled over, head over heels – there were never the right words to describe this unexpected, heady feeling that hit her every time she set eyes on this beautiful man.

  ‘As well, I am happy.’ He sat her down and gazed at her. He wore a grey shirt, open at the neck to show his throat, and the small gold cross hanging from a chain. ‘I hope to see you every day.’

  Una heard him struggle to express his feelings. Her heart opened out like blossom and her smile was soft and tender.

  ‘I sleep and I dream only of you.’

  She put her finger to his lips. ‘I have lovely dreams too.’

  He kissed her fingers and then her mouth. Water eddied and gurgled at their feet. Trees rose high and straight into the dusk sky.

  After a while, she drew back and asked him a question that she’d framed carefully in advance. ‘Angelo, do you ever talk about me?’

  He gave her a puzzled look. ‘Talk?’

  ‘Yes – about you and me. To Lorenzo or to any of the others?’

  ‘Ah. To Lorenzo only.’

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘Why you want to know?’ Brushing her hair back from her face, he cradled the back of her head.

  ‘Does he – I don’t know – does he approve?’

  ‘He like you, yes.’ Angelo smiled as if that settled the matter.

  Una didn’t smile back. She went on shaping the words so that he would understand. ‘But he says be careful?’

  ‘Careful?’

  ‘Not to make promises,’ she explained. ‘Not to get carried away.’

  Angelo shook his head. ‘Carried?’

  Una needed to be more direct to arrive at the point she wanted to make. ‘I know about Lorenzo and Eunice. Do you remember Eunice?’

  He nodded cautiously.

  ‘They were in love, weren’t they? But I’m afraid Lorenzo made promises that he couldn’t keep. He warns you not to make the same mistake?’

  The light dawned. He stood up suddenly in protest and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘I am not Lorenzo!’

  ‘Don’t be angry. I have to ask you, Angelo – do you have a girl back in Pisa? If you have, please tell me then I’ll know where I stand.’ She held her breath in an agony of suspense and waited for his answer.

  He kept her at arm’s length but his expression softened. ‘I am not Lorenzo,’ he repeated more tenderly. ‘There is no other girl. I am free.’

  It was what she longed to hear and she let out a long sigh of relief. ‘Oh, that’s marvellous.’

  ‘You believe?’

  ‘Yes, I believe you,’ she whispered.

  He drew her to him and held her fast. She leaned her head against his chest and felt the cold metal of his crucifix against her cheek.

  ‘I am for you, Una. Now and tomorrow and for always.’

  ‘So now we have to give the Italians a slap-up sandwich supper as well as a show?’ Jean, backed by Ivy McNamara and her best friend Dorothy Cook, quizzed Brenda over breakfast next morning. Her spoon hovered over her porridge bowl and she spoke loudly so that everyone could hear. ‘Tea and biscuits isn’t good enough this time around.’

  ‘And the Canadian pilots as well.’ Jean’s criticism didn’t dent Brenda’s enthusiasm. ‘They’re coming too. That’ll be fifteen extra – which makes fifty-odd in total. Don’t worry, we can fit them all in.’

  ‘What kind of supper?’ Kathleen wanted to know. She sat in her curlers, with a checked scarf tied around her head.

  Brenda had already worked out the details. ‘I say we get Ma C to bake us some cakes here at Fieldhead.’

  ‘With nice fresh scones,’ Elsie suggested as she reached over the table for the milk.

  ‘Good idea. Then we can take them down to the Institute and plate them up in their kitchen.’ Joyce had just sat down beside Una and she joined in enthusiastically. ‘Somehow we’ll have to get hold of extra flour and egg rations that week. Or no – wait. We can ask the Italian and Canadian cooks to contribute their share as well.’

  ‘You see, Jean – where there’s a will there’s a way.’ With Una, Elsie and Joyce definitely on board, Brenda was satisfied. ‘We want it to be a really special occasion. That’s why I thought we should have a nice big tree as well. Even though it’s not strictly within rules.’

  There were cries of agreement and increasingly far-fetched suggestions from further down the table.

  ‘Rules be blowed; let’s have a tree with glass baubles …’

  ‘Plenty of tinsel and a fairy on the top.’

  ‘What about a Christmas cake with sugar icing?’

  ‘Who’ll be Father Christmas?’

  ‘Steady on.’ Hilda Craven came along the row with a ladle and a heavy pan. The hostel warden doled out common sense along with extra helpings of porridge. ‘There’s a war on, remember.’

  ‘As if we could forget.’ Elsie reminded everyone that one of the unexploded bombs intended for Thornley Reservoir had recently blown up in a farmer’s field. ‘I was talking to Bill Mostyn in the pub last night. He said the poor old chap drove right over the darned thing in his tractor. He was blown to smithereens.’

  The table fell quiet at this, except for the scraping of spoons in bowls, until Joyce brought the conversation back round to preparations for the show. ‘If it’s a Christmas tree we want, I’ve spotted a nice specimen growing in the wood at the back of us,’ she told Una, who had finished breakfast and was about to set off on her bike. ‘You can’t miss it among all the elms. Take a look and see what you think.’

  ‘Some other time,’ Una told her on her way out. ‘I have to meet Grace and go on to Home Farm. I don’t want to keep her waiting.’

  ‘Very good – one home-grown Christmas tree, waiting for the axe to fall.’ Brenda scraped back her chair and stood up with a smile. ‘Now all we have to do is learn the steps to The Skaters’ Waltz and not trip over our two left feet, eh, Jean?’

  Grace put her back into ditch-digging for four hours straight, jamming her spade into the mud and hearing the satisfying squelch as she lifted it and heaved the load onto the bank. The work punished her body but eased her aching soul.

  ‘Have a rest,’ Una suggested. She stood by the hawthorn hedge, blowing into her hands to warm them and looking over her shoulder towards the farmhouse. ‘Joe and Frank are still in the dairy so they won’t notice.’

  ‘No, I’d rather keep busy.’ In went the spade and out again, in deep and out with a regular, unbroken rhythm.

  If only Edgar would open up about what had happened. Grace was sure that keeping everything bottled up was making him worse and worse. He was like a ghost in the house, silent and gaunt, jumping out of his skin at the least little sound. In and out, lift, twist and dump the mud under the hedgerow. ‘You have three brothers, don’t you, Una?’

  Una gave a hollow clap then blew again. ‘Four. There’s only Tom left at home. The rest are in uniform.’

  ‘Are any of them in the RAF?’

  ‘No, thank goodness.’ She realized as soon as she said this that she’d been tactless. ‘I’m sorry, Grace. I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘No, you’re right. We all know that flying a Lancaster over Berlin or Dresden is risky, to say the least.’

  ‘Still, I didn’t mean to upset you. Here, let me lift this out of your way.’ Una knelt then leaned forward to drag a waterlogged branch out of the ditch. ‘How is Edgar, by the way?’

  ‘Honestly, I’m worried sick about him.’ Grace talked as she worked on. ‘I heard him last night, shouting out in his sleep. When I went in to see him, I found him curled up in a corner of the room, eyes wide open but not really awake, shaking from head to toe. He wouldn’t let me anywhere near him, just kept pushing me away and screaming. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘For a start, Edgar wouldn’t like it if he knew we were talking about him. Besides, we all have relatives who’ve rallied
to Mr Churchill’s call and put themselves in harm’s way. I’m sure my family is no worse off than anyone else’s.’

  ‘That’s not the point, though. You have to cope with seeing what the war has done to your brother day in, day out.’ Una lifted more dead branches out of the ditch, grunting as she did so.

  ‘Ta, Una.’ Grace took a deep breath then leaned on her spade. ‘To be honest, I don’t know what I’d do without my Land Army pals. You’re what keeps me going.’

  Deep in conversation, neither Grace nor Una noticed Joe leave the dairy and go into the house, followed soon after by Frank who stood in the yard watching them as usual.

  ‘That’s nice to know.’ Grace’s confession led Una into a more cheerful confidence of her own. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but I saw Angelo yesterday and for the first time he told me he loves me. How about that?’

  ‘Did he now? And have you fallen in love with him?’

  ‘I suppose so. I didn’t expect to, but yes, I have!’ If falling in love meant thinking about someone every minute of every day, revelling in his touch and longing for him whenever you were apart.

  Grace saw the dreamy look in her new friend’s eyes and easily pictured what she was feeling because it had been like this for her and Bill during their first heady days together. ‘That’s good, then.’

  ‘Even if we’re on opposite sides?’ Una queried.

  ‘Yes. Being in love should never be anything to be ashamed of.’ If only this could apply to her, she thought. To wear Bill’s ring, to celebrate their love out in the open, would be a glorious thing when it finally happened. ‘The war won’t go on for ever and afterwards you two will be free to live where you want – here in England or in Italy if that’s what you decide.’

  ‘And Angelo did promise that he would love me tomorrow and always. That’s what he said. And he doesn’t have a fiancé or a wife.’

  Una’s solemn expression brought a smile to Grace’s lips, which she failed to hide.

  ‘He doesn’t!’ Una protested. ‘I asked him straight out. He’s not like Lorenzo.’

  Grace nodded. ‘I agree with you, he’s not.’

  The conversation fell away and they got back to work. Then Grace spoke again. ‘To give Lorenzo his due, he was upset when I told him about Eunice. I think he worked out that it wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘Did he know about the baby?’

  ‘No. At least, I didn’t tell him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It wasn’t my place. Besides, it might have had nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Really?’ The implications shocked Una and she didn’t stop turning them over in her mind until Emily came out of the house into the yard, cupped her hands around her mouth and called to them.

  ‘What did she say?’ Una asked.

  ‘Saturday’s our half day. It’s time to clock off.’ Grace clambered out of the ditch and shouldered her spade. ‘Come on – before Joe sticks his oar in and makes us stay.’

  The wind gusted across the hillside, bringing sleet with it, so that by the time they’d scraped mud off their boots and reclaimed their bikes from the shed, it was almost impossible to see where they were going. It bounced onto the stone flags and stung their faces as they set off along the rutted lane. They leaned into the wind and pedalled hard, eyes half shut, frozen fingers gripping the handlebars.

  Frank followed them on foot. He stuck close to the hedgerows and matched his pace with theirs, running to keep up as they free-wheeled downhill then dodging behind walls as they slowly climbed the hills. He stood in the chapel porch to watch Una say goodbye to Grace outside the Blacksmith’s Arms. Grace wheeled her bike round the side of the forge and disappeared. Una cycled on towards the crossroads and Frank turned up his jacket collar, pulled his cap down over his forehead, stepped out into the frozen rain and followed her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The short, dark days of winter spread extra gloom throughout the war-torn land. All talk at home was of shortages and blockades. Abroad, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought Roosevelt to a declaration of war at last.

  ‘As if it wasn’t bad enough for the Japs to sink half the American fleet, they’ve gone and attacked Hong Kong as well.’ Cliff brought Grace up to date with the most recent threat to the British Crown colony as she sat at the kitchen table writing her Christmas cards before she set off for work.

  ‘Yes, I heard it on the wireless.’ She blotted the ink dry then slotted the last card into its envelope. ‘It’s not looking good. The Canadians have had to send troops out there to back us up.’

  ‘And the very latest is that the Japanese have sunk two of our battleships in the South China Sea. HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse both went down off Singapore.’

  The feeling of helplessness that had threatened to engulf Grace before she switched off the morning news bulletin returned with a vengeance. Everywhere you turned there was terrifying talk of horrid Herr Hitler’s blitzkrieg. She looked at her small pile of sealed envelopes and thought how useless this tiny gesture of good cheer was, set against world-wide chaos. How can we bear to celebrate Christmas with all this going on? she wondered with a sinking heart.

  Her father sat on a stool to lace up his boots. Bending over brought a rush of blood to his cheeks and he grunted in discomfort. ‘Have you clapped eyes on your brother yet?’

  ‘I heard him get up a while ago.’ The sound of Edgar shuffling along the landing had woken her and she’d lain in the dark listening to him descend the stairs and move about the kitchen, turning on the tap and rattling the kettle down on the grate. By the time she was up and dressed, his coat was missing from its hook and he was gone from the house.

  ‘If you see him, tell him I’ll need a hand to shift barrels before opening time,’ Cliff mumbled as he tied on his apron and left for the forge.

  Grace pursed her lips. How am I supposed to do that when I’m out at work all day? she wanted to retort. Instead, she checked the hand-written rota pinned to the back of the door, put on her coat and hat and set out for Horace Turnbull’s hen farm on Winsill Edge.

  Brenda, Una and Joyce spent that Wednesday with Henry Rowson, who was the fifth generation of his family to have kept sheep on the fells above Kelsey Crag. Henry was seventy-two years young, hale and hearty, and determined to carry on farming until he dropped. His call for Land Army help to bring his sheep down to lower ground ready for lambing in January was one of his few concessions to the advancing years.

  It was the first day that Una and Brenda had spent herding sheep high above Burnside and they loved every minute.

  ‘I feel as if I’m on top of the world,’ Una exclaimed, standing next to Brenda on a limestone ledge overlooking an immense sweep of open country. Sheep were scattered across the hillside and Jess, Henry’s black-and-white dog, was out on a fetch, approaching a huddle of sheep then crouching low to wait for the next whistled command. Once given the signal, she would dart forward again to snap at their heels, worrying at them and herding them down the slope into the valley below.

  ‘Hey, you two, there’s no time to admire the view!’ Joyce called. She’d borrowed Henry’s other dog, Ben, for the day and had been working with him on the far side of the fell. Now she appeared on the ridge with Ben at her heels. ‘I’ve got two dozen pregnant ewes up here. One of you needs to come and lend a hand.’

  Una volunteered and set off up the steep, rock-strewn hillside.

  ‘Brenda, you go down and help Henry,’ Joyce yelled above the blustering wind. ‘Tell him Una and I will bring the rest of the flock down to the fold.’

  It sounded simple enough, but Una found that there was a lot of hard work still to be done. Joyce’s sheep were a scraggy, miserable-looking bunch whose mission seemed to be to defeat the dog’s efforts to bring them down off the fell. Every time Ben darted then crouched then darted again, they scattered in all directions. ‘Sprint down to that big rock and head them off.’ Joyce issued orders and Una obeyed, arms flailing in an attempt to redirec
t the runaways. ‘Left, left – turn them to your left!’ Then, two minutes later, ‘Down in the dip – get after those three strays, bring them back up!’

  The relentless wind buffeted them, Joyce blew the whistle that she’d borrowed from the farmer, the ewes bleated until, as dusk drew in and a pale moon appeared in the clear sky, they came to the start of a green lane long used by shepherds to bring sheep off the hills into the lee of Kelsey Crag. ‘Close that gate behind us.’ Joyce’s final order came as the last of the flock entered the lane. All that remained was to chivvy them forward the few hundred yards into the fold where they found Henry and Brenda waiting for them.

  ‘You took your time,’ Henry grumbled as he slammed the fold gate on the last of his flock. ‘Thank you’ and ‘Goodbye’ were not in the old man’s vocabulary, it seemed. He called Ben and Jess to heel then set off for his farmhouse, which lay across the trout stream at the far side of an ancient stone bridge.

  Brenda grinned as she gave a mock curtsey behind his back. ‘Ta, girls. I’m much obliged.’ Looking at her watch, she saw that she had time to cycle to Fieldhead and fit in her bath before dinner. ‘I’ll race you back,’ she challenged the others.

  It was only when they were half a mile down the road that Joyce remembered the borrowed whistle in her coat pocket. ‘Uh-oh, I’d better go back,’ she decided.

  ‘It’ll be dark before you reach home if you do,’ Brenda warned.

  ‘I don’t mind. You two go ahead without me.’ Joyce turned around and headed back towards the overhanging crag. Though she was level headed and practical, she found there was something primitive about Kelsey and its surroundings that made the hairs at the nape of her neck prickle – a vastness and an unchanging nature that highlighted her own insignificance. The sky darkened as she cycled towards it. The thin bleat of Henry Rowson’s sheep was the only sound to break the silence.

  This won’t take long, Joyce told herself as she neared the old footbridge. There was a light on in the nearby farmhouse. Two large birds flew out from under the stone arch, quacking excitedly as they kept low and followed the course of the fast-flowing stream.