The Land Girls at Christmas

by Jenny Holmes

  A strangled cry of protest escaped Jean’s lips.

  ‘I mean it. I’ve had enough. Now, are you going to collect pine cones with me or not?’

  ‘I was only saying—’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No.’ Jean stalked off, promising herself that Joyce Cutler wouldn’t get away with treating her like this. Who did she think she was? She would have a word with Dorothy and Ivy when they got back from work. ‘Be careful what you say to Joyce,’ she would warn them. ‘She’s taken Una’s side over the affair with the POW, and we all know from Eunice’s experience how that’s bound to end.’

  Home Farm was the last place Una, Grace and Brenda wanted to be on a Monday morning ten days before Christmas. To make matters worse, they found that their job was to feed wheat into Arnold White’s threshing machine, which Joe Kellett had hired for the day. This meant they had to start by setting up sacks to collect the grain out of one outlet pipe then lay out hessian sheets over the cobbles to gather the chaff that the giant machine would spew out at the far end.

  ‘Have you got any goggles for us?’ Grace asked the old farmer as he stoked up the steam engine in the yard. Without protection, clouds of dust and fluff would make their eyes itchy and sore. The engine chugged into life and drowned her out. ‘Did you hear me, Joe?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you.’ Knowing that the answer would be no, Brenda got ready to feed wheat into the machine. It had been stored since harvest time in a barn beyond the dairy building, and carting it into the yard had brought a dozen or more hens out into the open to peck at the spilt ears.

  Joe closed the door on the roaring furnace and gave orders for Grace to start stuffing wheat into the maw of the metal monster where it would be churned inside a huge drum. He gave Una a pitchfork and told her to stand by at the chute where the straw came out. Brenda got landed with the worst job of gathering up the chaff. He watched them until he was sure they’d got the hang of things – grains into sacks, straw pitched onto the nearby cart, chaff piled onto the sheets then gathered up for disposal. After ten minutes he was satisfied. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he told Brenda as he made his way towards the dairy. ‘I’ll send Frank out in half an hour to stoke the fire.’

  As if things aren’t bad enough without him getting under our feet. Brenda’s mouth and nostrils were already choked by dust and the engine was so loud that she could hardly hear herself think. Kathleen’s account of what had happened to Eunice was still at the forefront of her mind and she knew that both she and Una would find it hard to work with him after what they’d heard. She coughed as she bent over to pull at the drawstrings that would shape the hessian into a large bag.

  Clouds of steam billowed out of the funnel and the engine chugged relentlessly. Thirty minutes of back-breaking work passed but there was no sign of Frank.

  ‘We’re running out of steam. Shall I chuck more coal in?’ Brenda yelled above the slowing churn of the machine.

  ‘No. Let me go and tell Frank.’ Grace left her post and rushed off in search of the farmer’s son. She knew that feeding the furnace was his job, not theirs, but when she went into the dairy she found that the morning milking had been done and the metal churns taken away. The floors were scrubbed and hosed, the building empty. She sighed and went from there into the cowshed where a dozen black-and-white Friesians swished their tails as they stared out from their straw-lined stalls. There was still no sign of Frank.

  ‘Hurry up, Grace,’ Brenda called as she emerged from the shed. ‘Trust Mr Kellett Junior not to be on hand on the one occasion when you actually need him. We’re grinding to a halt here.’

  So Grace hurried on towards the farmhouse and was about to knock on the door when she heard angry voices from inside the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s Frank?’ Joe hectored. ‘He’s not in the cowshed and he’s not in the dairy, so where’s he got to?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Emily fired back.

  Grace stayed her hand, uncertain whether or not to interrupt the row that was building between man and wife.

  ‘Come off it – you always know where he is. You never let him out of your sight if you can help it.’

  ‘Because someone has to keep an eye on him, that’s why. Anyway, you’re not listening to me. I haven’t clapped eyes on Frank since before breakfast.’

  ‘That’s typical – him buggering off for the day. One look at the threshing machine coming up the lane and he’s off.’

  ‘Yes, and who can blame him? You work everyone to death when that machine arrives.’

  ‘Oh yes, stick up for him as usual, why don’t you?’

  Grace heard Joe swear then there was the sound of a door slamming. She knocked timidly and peered into the kitchen to see Emily lowering herself into a chair and rubbing her forehead. Steam rose from a copper tub in one corner in readiness for the weekly wash. A pile of dirty laundry lay in a heap on the wooden draining board.

  ‘Excuse me, Emily,’ Grace began.

  The older woman looked up wearily. Wisps of white hair had escaped from the bun at the nape of her neck and she looked worn down. ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you but the furnace in the threshing machine is running low on coal.’ A closer look around the kitchen told Grace that Emily wasn’t keeping up with the housework. There was a layer of dust on the mantelpiece and holes in the net curtain strung haphazardly across the window. ‘Shall we wait for someone to come or shall we see to it ourselves?’

  Joe stamped back into the room before Emily had a chance to answer. His face was red and the veins on his forehead stood out. ‘Didn’t you hear what she said just now? The useless bugger has left us in the lurch yet again.’

  ‘You listen to me, Joe Kellett.’ Emily raised herself to her feet in fresh fury. ‘I don’t blame Frank for making himself scarce after the thrashing you gave him last night. And why? All because he wouldn’t tell you where he’d been.’

  Joe growled his sardonic reply. ‘We already knew where he’d been – that was the trouble.’

  Emily shot a wary glance at Grace before she went on. ‘And was that any reason to beat the boy black and blue? He had bruises all down his arm from your belt buckle after you’d finished with him.’

  Grace winced and took a step backwards.

  Joe gathered phlegm in his throat then spat into the hearth. ‘He had it coming.’

  ‘No, he didn’t. All he did was to sit on a bench in the village.’

  ‘In the middle of winter.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? And because of that you’ve flogged him and driven him away.’

  Grace gave a small cough. ‘It’s all right; I expect we can keep the furnace going by ourselves,’ she said as she backed out into the porch.

  ‘He’s a bloody useless sod!’ The old man’s voice followed her as she retreated. ‘Always was, always will be!’

  ‘You’re the limit, Joe.’ Emily’s voice rose to a high-pitched wail. ‘You treat that boy worse than the beasts in your cowshed and this time you’ve gone a step too far.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In the small community of Burnside, news of Frank Kellett’s disappearance spread fast. The farmers in the neighbourhood gave vague promises to search their barns and outhouses in case he took refuge there. Cliff Kershaw mentioned it to his regulars when they called in on their way home from work. In truth, no one was particularly bothered or looked as if they would go out of their way to find him.

  ‘Surely he can’t have gone far,’ Edith Mostyn said when she heard the news from Hilda Craven during a routine visit to Fieldhead that afternoon. ‘Not if he’s on foot.’

  Hilda had supplied Edith with up-to-date details for the girls’ medical cards then asked for help in folding clean sheets ready for ironing. ‘Frank hasn’t gone AWOL recently. In fact, the last time was over two years back and it wasn’t the middle of winter, it was July.’

  Edith held one end of a sheet and matched up the corners. ‘Do we know what
made him run off?’

  ‘I did hear rumours from one of the girls. According to Brenda, who heard it from Grace—’

  ‘You can’t always rely on their word,’ Edith interrupted.

  ‘Yes. Anyway, according to Brenda there was a bad falling-out on Sunday night between Frank and his father.’ Hilda pressed her lips together then gave her end of the sheet a sharp tug to make it hang straight before they folded it again. ‘Need I say more?’

  ‘No, indeed.’ As lifelong residents in the village, though at different ends of the social scale, Edith and Hilda both knew Joe’s cruel reputation for beating sense into his hapless son. They’d watched it from afar, since the days when young Frank used to skip school and roam the moor looking for birds’ eggs or baby rabbits. His father would stand at the gate waiting for him to return, leather belt in hand. As the deaf boy had grown up and it had become obvious that there were other reasons he would never be able to fend for himself, Joe’s treatment had if anything grown worse.

  ‘It’s Emily Kellett I feel sorry for,’ Hilda went on. ‘It’s not always been easy but she’s done her best with Frank. It’s not her fault that he’ll never amount to much.’

  As Edith handed over the sheet, she decided to draw a line under the gossip. ‘We have no idea what it must be like for the Kelletts,’ she said with a sigh. ‘In any case, let’s hope that one night sleeping out in the open is enough for him.’

  ‘For Emily’s sake, if no one else’s,’ Hilda agreed.

  Edith left the warden to her laundry and went upstairs to make a list of items needing repair or replacement. There was a broken light shade in Jean, Ivy and Dorothy’s room, a moth-eaten net curtain in the window at the end of the landing, a cracked pane of glass in the bathroom door. Fieldhead was growing shabbier by the week and though she put in regular requests to the County Office, there was rarely any money forthcoming for repairs. She noticed that the rubber sole of someone’s shoe had scuffed the skirting board at the head of the stairs and that a brass stair rod had been kicked loose halfway down. Such carelessness offended her. When she had lived here, every inch of oak panelling had been bees-waxed and every brass doorknob given a daily polish. Times tables had been recited in a well-regulated chorus; globes of the world had displayed the glories of the British Empire.

  On her way out to her car, Edith saw Elsie about to lean her bike against the front steps. ‘Please don’t leave it there!’ she called out in a shrill voice. ‘Take it round to the back of the building, out of sight.’

  ‘Right you are,’ Elsie replied obligingly. She glanced up at a solitary Lancaster bomber leaving a trail of vapour across the clear dusk sky. ‘By the way, Mrs Mostyn, did you hear the latest? Ivy and Dorothy spotted Frank Kellett all by himself out at Kelsey Tarn.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘It must have been an hour and a half ago, at about three o’clock. They didn’t talk to him, though – he was too far away.’

  ‘So they just left him there?’

  Elsie nodded. ‘What else could they do? They were busy bringing more sheep down off the fell.’

  Edith frowned and got into her car. She pulled on her gloves then turned on the ignition, ready to drive straight to Home Farm. If there was any chance that Frank was still out by the isolated lake, then Emily and Joe needed to know.

  ‘Eight days to go and we’re nowhere near ready.’ Joyce placed a shoebox filled with silvered pine cones on Grace’s kitchen table. ‘Elsie and Una can’t seem to get the hang of “I Get a Kick out of You” and Brenda is still struggling with Dorothy’s song from The Wizard of Oz. I’ve told them to rehearse without me tonight.’

  Grace took off her coat and hung it on its hook. She picked up one of the cones and turned it between her slim fingers. ‘These will do nicely as tree decorations.’

  ‘Oh yes – the blessed tree! I’ve been badgering Brenda to flout the rules and help me to chop it down. It was her idea, after all.’ Joyce sat heavily then leaned her elbows on the table. ‘Honestly, Grace, sometimes I don’t know why I bother. I still can’t get a decent note out of the Fieldhead piano and no one else seems to be bothered about how little time we have left.’

  Grace sat down beside her. ‘I’ll come over and give you a hand with the tree on Saturday afternoon. We’ll cut it down, tie it to my bike and then I can wheel it back to the Institute.’

  Joyce nodded and looked absent-mindedly out of the window, taking pins out of her hair and slipping them between her lips while she rearranged her French pleat.

  ‘What’s up, Joyce? This isn’t like you. You’re usually so full of beans.’

  ‘I know and I’m sorry. I’ll be all right once I’ve had a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘Are you sure nothing’s bothering you?’ Grace too was feeling heartsore and desperately confused over Bill, but she managed to put aside her own worries.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘Really and truly? You know what they say about a problem shared.’

  Joyce gave in to Grace’s gentle insistence. ‘Well, if you must know, I’ve had to work with Jean today and she’s spent the whole time pulling poor Una to pieces, harping on about her friendship with Angelo and issuing dire warnings about fraternizing with the enemy. In the end I had to tell her to shut up.’

  ‘Good for you!’ Grace smiled warmly. ‘I’m sure you’re not the only one who’s been tempted.’

  ‘What makes Jean so permanently down in the mouth?’

  ‘I did hear that she was poorly with scarlet fever when she was little. She missed a lot of school and had to stay back a year while her friends went on to the grammar school. I expect that made her feel left out.’

  ‘Yes, that might account for it.’ Joyce resolved to try to be more patient with Jean in future. ‘I’m still worried about Una, though. Did you see how Jean, Ivy and Dorothy ganged up on her at Sunday’s rehearsal?’

  ‘I didn’t notice. But then, I wasn’t feeling very well.’ Settling in for a chat with Joyce was doing Grace good. They were on the same wavelength about most things and she always felt relaxed in her company.

  ‘What was it – a gippy tummy?’ Joyce took the silver cones from the box and lined them up in a row – fifteen in all. They would look just right hanging from the Christmas tree.

  If only it was as simple as that, Grace thought. An image of Bill’s face popped into her head – the look of alarm in his eyes when she’d caught him hand in hand with Brenda and the blow it had dealt. The wound hadn’t healed; rather it had festered as she went over Bill’s poor excuses time after time. ‘Yes, it must have been something I’d eaten,’ she said quietly.

  Joyce gave her a quizzical glance and saw from Grace’s downcast eyes that there was more to it. Her thoughts flew to her friend’s worries about her brother. ‘A problem shared …?’ she reminded her.

  Grace sighed and carefully rearranged the cones into a circle. ‘I’d had an argument,’ she confessed. ‘I won’t say who with but it upset me a great deal.’

  ‘I can see that. And bridges can’t be built?’ Joyce asked hopefully. She was convinced that there was a way back from every argument – where there’s life, there’s hope was her hard-earned motto.

  ‘No.’ A look of alarm swiftly followed by guilt on Bill’s face as Brenda had taken the key and hurried off. His desperately disappointing excuses. A shared secret that had cracked open, the sparkle of rubies and emeralds still in the box in her bedroom. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  The forge at night was the place where Edgar felt safest. He sat in the dark and listened to the glowing embers settle, surrounded by the tools of his father’s trade – hammers of all sizes, callipers, tongs, boxes of nails, metal rods stacked against the wall, cast-off horseshoes, bellows made of wood and leather, secured by brass studs. There were echoes of his childhood here. His own footsteps ran in from the sunny yard, his boyish voice demanded to know when his father would come in for his tea. Endless tapping and hammering, a blast of air from
the bellows, the flare of flames in the red-hot furnace. His father would look up, his face red and shiny, his strong, bare arm wielding his hammer high above his head. ‘Tell your mother I’ll be finished in half an hour.’ Edgar remembered how he’d run back into the house. His mum would be in the kitchen, boiling a ham hock in a big pan perhaps. Grace would be drawing flowers at the kitchen table. Daisies in a jam jar, picked from the field behind the forge. Bare legs tickled by long grass in the still heat of midsummer. And always the sound of the hammer in the background to his boyhood days.

  ‘Hello, Edgar.’ Joyce had said goodbye to Grace in the kitchen then taken a short cut through the forge to collect her bike. She’d been startled to see him sitting on the anvil, staring into space. ‘I didn’t see you there.’

  Her voice rang out in the cavernous space but there was no reply.

  She walked on towards the side door, opened it, then paused. ‘Do you hear that?’ She meant the low rumble of planes flying overhead. ‘Are they Spitfires or Lancasters?’

  ‘Heinkels. No – two Heinkels and a Dornier.’

  ‘You can tell that without seeing them?’

  ‘Every plane has a different sound – that’s two night fighters and a bomber, heading north-east towards the RAF base up there on the coast. With luck, our chaps will intercept them.’

  ‘What about the Canadian training centre on Penny Lane – does Jerry know about that?’

  Edgar’s voice was expressionless. ‘He knows everything. He was there on the ground waiting for Billy and me in Brittany. It was as if they’d been expecting us.’

  ‘But you managed to get away?’ Joyce had retraced her steps to where he sat. The question hung in the air.

  ‘I was jammed in the gun turret, twenty feet up,’ he said at last. ‘We landed in some trees and the plane was left hanging there. Billy had been shot in the chest. There was blood and bits of him everywhere. A dozen of them came swarming towards us when the whole thing went up in flames. I had to climb over Billy to smash my way out. Their lot stood back and watched it burn – no survivors is what they reckoned. They turned back the way they’d come.’