The Land Girls at Christmas

by Jenny Holmes

  Grace got out of the car and walked towards him.

  He knew the truth the moment he saw her face in the light from the oil lamp hanging in the porch. ‘Emily, you’d better come.’

  Frank’s mother knew it too without being told. No one visited after dark unless it was an emergency. Besides, she’d been dreading this for days. She came from the kitchen into the porch, carrying a cup and a tea towel, only waiting for Grace to say the words.

  ‘Emily, Joe – I’m very sorry.’

  Joe’s eyes flickered with a sorrow that quickly faded. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘Up on Swinsty – in one of the hides. He’d been there a while.’

  ‘Who found him?’ Emily took in the news without flinching. The waiting and wondering was over. Now she could get on and grieve.

  ‘I did.’ Gently Grace steered her indoors and sat her down, prepared herself to answer the questions that never came.

  ‘They’ll take him to the hospital morgue,’ Bill told Joe, who stayed out in the cold. ‘You’ll be able to go and see him if you like.’

  ‘It makes no difference to Frank whether we do or we don’t.’ He jerked his head towards the house. ‘She’ll want to, though.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ Bill shook his head helplessly.

  ‘Aye.’ Joe walked away, across the yard into the empty dairy. He sat alone with his thoughts until he heard Bill and Grace drive off.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Grace asked Emily, who had put down the cup and silently twisted and wrung the tea towel between her hands. ‘Can I fetch someone to stay with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you like me to stay?’

  ‘No – thank you.’ She’d battled for Frank. She’d fed him and clothed him, sent him to school, stood up for him all his life. She’d loved him. ‘You get off back to the pub,’ she told Grace as she untwisted the cloth then folded it neatly. ‘It’s Christmas Eve – your father will be run off his feet.’

  Joyce and Edgar stood at the forge door after Bill and Grace had driven away. Neither had felt like going into the pub, where a steady flow of early-evening drinkers came and went. They’d preferred to talk.

  ‘Benghazi is under Allied control but it seems likely that Hong Kong will go to the Japs.’ Edgar had started to keep up with the news again. The war that he’d crashed out of in his burning plane still raged on – battleships had been sunk in the South China seas, Hitler had made himself Supreme Commander in Chief of the German army.

  Joyce had been in no hurry to leave but she’d wanted to steer him away from bombing and killing into calmer, clearer waters. ‘What have you got lined up for tomorrow – will you be sitting around the table for the usual Christmas fare?’

  ‘I don’t know. I leave that to Grace.’

  ‘Have you bought her a present?’

  ‘Yes. I caught the bus into Northgate and bought her a box of watercolour paints and a new sketch pad.’

  ‘She’ll like that.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘It’s turkey and all the trimmings at the hostel for me and the girls, courtesy of Ma C, as Brenda calls her. She’s been saving up coupons for weeks.’

  ‘You could come down here afterwards and have tea,’ Edgar had suggested. He’d realized he wanted to see her again, to hear more of her rich, mellifluous voice. ‘If you’d like to, that is.’

  ‘Just me? Or does that include Una and Brenda as well?’

  ‘All of you – the more the merrier.’ But especially you in the same room as me, sitting by the fire – me listening, you talking.

  ‘I would like to,’ she’d agreed. ‘I’ll bring a pack of cards. We can all gather round your kitchen table and play a game of rummy.’

  It was settled by the time Bill drove Grace back home. Edgar and Joyce had said goodbye. He’d gone into the house and Joyce had walked down to Bill’s house to fetch her bike.

  Bill got out of the car in the pub yard then opened Grace’s door for her. He held out his hand and she took it. ‘You’ve had a rough day. Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I feel for Emily, but otherwise, yes.’ Sad and exhausted, with a sharp, unaccustomed awareness that life wasn’t always fair after all, Grace felt as if she’d lost her bearings.

  ‘I’ll stay with you a while,’ he said quietly and they went hand in hand towards the field behind the forge. They leaned on the stile and looked out across an expanse of white snow criss-crossed by animal tracks.

  ‘It’s getting late. You should go home to your mother.’ She remembered the times that they’d walked across this field together – in spring, when the emerald grass was studded with gold, purple and white meadow flowers, or in high summer when brilliant red poppies sang out amongst feathery swathes of hay-ripe grass. Their petals dropped the moment you brushed past them. Blackthorn blossom in the hedges marked the day when Bill had first asked her to walk out with him – the melting look of a young puppy in his brown eyes. Daisies for the times when they’d crowned their love with kisses, wild roses at the edge of the woods when he’d proposed. Now it was stars sparkling in the night sky.

  Bill gazed out across the empty field. ‘I’d rather stay here,’ he insisted. ‘I want to stand beside you for ever and never leave.’

  Grace turned her head to look at him. He was calm and quiet and her heart stopped then skipped and skittered unevenly.

  Staring straight ahead, hands clasped on the top bar of the stile, he went on. ‘I’ll say how I feel in case I never get another chance. You know me, Grace, better than anyone. You can see what the future looks like for me – all nicely mapped out to take Dad’s place in the firm. It’ll be comfortable, but never exciting – I’ll go to work and play my sports, with no danger of being called up because the tractors are part of the war effort. There’ll be no heroics.’

  His skin was smooth in the moonlight, his hair almost black, with a lock falling forward over his forehead. She felt him weave a cloak of soft words around her.

  ‘I’m not one for big, romantic gestures – you know that.’

  She smiled in recognition. ‘Neither am I. We both shy away from that.’

  ‘But you mean the world to me, Grace, and I want us to get back to where we were – before all the silly misunderstandings with Brenda.’

  ‘They happened. I don’t think we can pretend they didn’t.’ Her forehead creased into a thoughtful frown. ‘Brenda got the wrong end of the stick – I realized that from the start. But I felt my hands were well and truly tied.’

  ‘That’s you and me all over – both giving other people’s opinions too much weight. What with me bowing to family pressures and you sticking by what we’d agreed, we got ourselves into a right mess.’

  She nodded in agreement. ‘Poor Brenda didn’t know where to put herself when she found out.’

  ‘I let it go too far – I should have owned up earlier.’ He remembered his brief fascination for the girl on the motor bike, riding into Burnside like a breath of fresh air.

  Grace picked up his train of thought, recalled the kiss then scraped up the courage to tackle it head on one last time. ‘You liked her, though?’

  ‘In a way, yes. But liking is different to loving – it didn’t scratch the surface compared with my feelings for you.’ He looked down at his clasped hands then turned to face her. ‘I was a fool. I hurt you and I’m sorry.’

  ‘Brenda’s hard to say no to,’ she acknowledged. ‘She and I are chalk and cheese. So are the other girls at Fieldhead – all completely different. But when it comes down to it, we have a lot in common. We work and play together and we stand up for each other through thick and thin.’

  ‘I know you do – Herr Hitler had better watch out.’ Bill smiled at her earnestness. ‘And since we’re down to brass tacks, the business between me and Shirley Foster never got beyond Mum’s fertile imagination.’

  ‘So I was jealous over nothing.’

  ‘Were you – jealous?’

  ‘A
little bit. I was over Brenda, too.’ She blushed to remember it. ‘Bill, we’ve grown up together here in the same village and yet sometimes I feel as if we don’t really know each other.’ With the hum of noise from the pub in the background, she looked out across the field. ‘We should have talked more honestly and been more open.’

  ‘That’s what we’re doing now.’ His voice was slow and tender. ‘I’ve watched you this afternoon. I’ve seen how you were with Emily, and before that, how you acted when we found poor Frank. No one could have done more. You were the caring, gentle Grace that I know – the Grace that I love.’

  She felt her lips tremble and her eyes fill with tears. ‘Life’s not fair. Frank shouldn’t have been allowed to die like that. Edgar shouldn’t have been shot out of the sky in that plane.’

  ‘It’s the war.’ Bill put his arms around her and held her close. He felt her lean into him, her head on his shoulder. ‘And no, life isn’t fair but we have to make the best of it. And that means that you and I should be together. We should get married.’

  Grace nodded. ‘We should,’ she agreed with a quiet, slow smile. Together she and Bill would step out into the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘Have you seen Saturday’s rota?’ Joyce laid a run of hearts onto Grace’s kitchen table. She, Brenda and Una had spent a jolly Christmas morning at Fieldhead, exchanging presents before tucking into a slap-up dinner of turkey and roast spuds, courtesy of Mrs C who had worked wonders with their meagre ration allowances. The hostel table had groaned under the weight. Rosy Land Girl faces had been wreathed in smiles and absent loved ones remembered with fond sighs.

  ‘What about the rota?’ Una asked now.

  ‘All four of us are down for ditch digging at Henry Rowson’s.’

  ‘What a treat!’ Brenda took a card from the deck. ‘Blow me – Queen of Clubs,’ she grumbled before discarding it again.

  ‘Yes – it is a treat,’ Grace insisted. ‘You, Joyce, Una and I will be the four musketeers, one for all, all for one!’

  Bill stood with his back to the window, blocking what little light there was. ‘It’s a long way to cycle – all the way out to Kelsey Crag. I can gift you a lift.’

  ‘Ooh, ta, Bill – we’ll take you up on that,’ Brenda said with a grin. ‘But it’ll be a squash in your little Austin 7. Una, you might have to sit on my knee.’

  It was Una’s turn to take a card. She made a set of three aces and laid them down. Christmas morning had been hard for her, knowing that Angelo was still tantalizingly close yet she was helpless to do anything about it. She’d kept his carved box in her pocket and taken out the picture of him and his sister and the piece of paper showing his home address. How long would it be before the war was over, she’d wondered – six months or a year perhaps? Though, truth be told, the Allies were having a hard tussle against the Japanese and Mr Churchill had warned on the wireless that the fight for victory might be long and hard. Two years at the most, then. In the meantime, she would wait each day for letters from Scotland and hang on every word that Angelo wrote.

  ‘Edgar, it’s your turn.’ Joyce jogged him with her elbow.

  He laid off a seven and an eight of hearts on her run of three. She was here, in the warm, cosy kitchen with a fire ablaze in the hearth and the daylight fading. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

  ‘Bill, why don’t you join in the next game?’ Grace asked. His proposal of the night before lay warm around her heart. Later today, after the card game had finished, they planned to walk down the street and announce their engagement to his mother then they would all drive to the hospital and tell his father. Her cheeks glowed and her grey eyes gleamed with happiness.

  Bill looked at the circle of faces around the table. Edgar had come downstairs at the last minute and drawn up his chair next to Joyce’s. No one had said anything but all had been glad to see him – Grace especially because it meant that he was slowly but surely getting back to his old self. Joyce had willingly made room for him. Bill wondered idly if she and Edgar would eventually begin a romance. They would make a handsome couple and she would be good for him, he thought. But then there was the small matter of Edgar returning to his squadron to rejoin the war effort to consider, so best not to bank on anything until after the war.

  ‘Bill?’ Grace moved her chair to offer him a space.

  ‘Yes, Bill – come and sit down,’ Brenda cajoled. ‘You’re blocking our light.’

  All was easy and relaxed in the homely room.

  As Bill moved away from the window, Una saw something outside that made her throw down her hand of cards and jump up from the table. Before the others knew it, she’d run into the yard without her coat.

  Brenda was the first to follow, in time to see a slow-moving green lorry pull into the pub yard. It was crammed to the gunnels with prisoners from Beckwith Camp, all scrambling over each other to see out of the back. ‘Grace, Joyce – come and say goodbye to our Italians!’ she called over her shoulder.

  Una’s heart was in her mouth as she ran towards the lorry. Angelo must be there, she must see him one last time. Faces smiled down at her, voices laughed and hands reached for her, fingers splayed.

  ‘Arrivederci! Addio!’

  She searched for his face – the only one that mattered.

  ‘Una!’ He called her name as Lorenzo shoved him forward and the others made way.

  Her heart stopped. She stood on tiptoe and their fingers touched. The wind blew her dark hair across her cheeks and made the hem of her red dress flutter.

  He clasped her warm hand, mouthing words that she didn’t need to understand to know that he loved her.

  ‘Write to me as soon as you get there,’ she whispered back.

  ‘Take!’ he said as he slipped something into her hand.

  The lorry driver revved his engine. It was Albert and he’d recognized the girl in red from when she’d been working on the potato clamps at Brigg Farm – in fact, who could forget that auburn hair and those big brown eyes? He’d heard Lorenzo shout for him to stop. Why not? he’d thought. What difference will a couple of minutes make? But he couldn’t hold up for too long, or else his sergeant would have a go at him. Greenock, here we come!

  ‘I write,’ Angelo promised. The lorry eased away but Una kept pace with it. ‘Every day, I write.’

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

  Twenty faces smiled and cheered. The POWs waved as the lorry picked up speed.

  ‘Ti amo, mia cara.’

  It drove away and Brenda, Joyce and Grace came to stand beside Una. They watched Angelo wave one last time as the lorry passed the chapel then disappeared round the bend.

  All was silent in the gathering dusk.

  ‘You’ll see him again, I bet my life on it,’ Brenda murmured.

  ‘I know.’ Una’s heart beat strong and steadily because Angelo loved her. She opened her hand to see his last gift to her – his precious gold cross and a chain that linked them with an unbreakable promise. She raised it to her lips and kissed it, vowing to carry his love with her until the guns fell silent and the last bomb dropped on the war-torn earth.

  Barbara Holmes in her Women’s Land Army uniform.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  My mother, Barbara Holmes, joined the Women’s Land Army in 1943, aged 19.

  I have two black-and-white photographs of her in uniform that were taken in the back garden of her family home in Beckwithshaw village just outside Harrogate, North Yorkshire. In one she stands bareheaded in shirt and tie, knitted sweater, corduroy breeches, long socks and brogues. The other shows her in a short, belted coat and felt hat, complete with Land Army badge. They capture her in characteristic stance – her head tilting shyly forward, but smiling proudly.

  Like Grace in the novel, she continued to live at home to help her father run the village pub, with her two older sisters Connie and Sybil, and twins Joan and Myra. Brother Walter was in the RAF and Ernest had joined the army.

  Practical by nature
and upbringing, she took to Land Army tasks with determination and gusto, working alongside old school friends for neighbouring farmers whom she’d known all her life; namely, the landowning Williams family who held an almost feudal status in the village (they owned the Smith’s Arms and most of the houses, built the church, vicarage and village institute) and the Wintersgills’ hen farm that was close to the now famous RHS Harlow Carr.

  There was a certain glamour attached to being a Land Girl – at least to the image of it if not the reality, which meant ploughing, tractor driving, digging, weeding, trimming and labouring in all weathers. After working all day in the fields, Mum would cycle home to join her sisters behind the bar in the Smith’s Arms. It was here that she met my father, Jim Lyne, home on leave from the Royal Navy in 1944. The story goes that Connie looked out to see him and his pals crossing the yard. ‘Watch out, here comes the Navy!’ she warned. Well, the Navy arrived in Mum’s life and never left. There was a whirlwind courtship and an engagement soon after; a ruby and emerald ring and long separations while Dad served in the Mediterranean, only returning home on leave on rare occasions.

  Meanwhile, disaster! Mum’s precious ring was lost while working in the hen huts. She and her Land Girl pals were down on their knees in a frantic search through beds of straw. Triumph; the ring was found and safely restored to Mum’s finger in time for Dad’s next shore leave.

  Like many women of the time, once the war ended, Mum settled into the more traditional roles of housewife and mother. She rarely looked back to her wartime service, except perhaps to mention that the uniform was hard wearing and well made, especially the coat, or that the life was hard but worthwhile. She never boasted about her contribution to the war effort or softened her experience with fond nostalgia. That was not her style.