A Christmas Wish for the Land Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  Out in the yard Laurence whistled for his dogs. In the kitchen Alma and Joyce stared, open mouthed.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Alma said breathlessly. ‘Did Laurence just say he would teach me to drive?’

  ‘He did.’ Joyce took her cup to the sink. ‘You weren’t imagining it.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ Alma shook her head over and over at this sudden possibility. ‘I would be able to go anywhere I wanted, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘You certainly would.’ A smile spread over Joyce’s face as she tackled the washing-up.

  ‘I wouldn’t have to rely on anyone.’ The penny dropped slowly but surely. ‘My whole life would change.’ Alma imagined driving the Land-Rover into Shawcross and on through picture-perfect Burnside towards smoky Millwood with its woollen mills and canals and on to fashionable Northgate. Or she could head off in the opposite direction towards Rixley and the North York Moors. Beyond that lay the seaside: Scarborough, Robin Hood’s Bay, Whitby, where she’d once been taken on a day trip by her mother and father to see the abbey and the fishing boats in the harbour. Learning to drive would mean she was as free as a bird.

  When Joyce turned from the sink she saw that Alma was crying. Tears ran down her cheeks and she didn’t try to hide them. ‘Say yes before he changes his mind,’ she advised.

  ‘Yes!’ There was no time to lose. Alma ran out into the yard without her coat and caught Laurence as he was about to set out again with Flint and Patch. ‘Yes!’ she called. She took hold of his hand and let him see her tear-stained face. ‘Yes, please! I’d like that very much.’

  A busy Friday night at the Cross Keys was the norm but this was the run-up to Christmas and when Evelyn arrived at the pub she found that many of the usual customers had stayed away and her services behind the bar were not required.

  ‘I wish Fred had given me advance warning,’ she complained to Brenda as they took up residence in a cosy corner, both wearing dresses that did little to keep out the cold. Brenda’s was made of a bright blue jersey material with a pork-pie frill around the hem and neckline, while Evelyn wore a red shirt-waister with a gathered skirt. ‘If I’d known, I wouldn’t have cycled all this way for nothing.’

  ‘Then you wouldn’t have had the pleasure of my company.’ Glad to find Evelyn at a loose end, Brenda settled in for a chat. ‘Have you seen our Christmas tree since it was decorated? Dorothy never does things by halves, does she? It’s got more baubles and tinsels than, well, any Christmas tree you’ve ever seen!’

  Evelyn nodded. ‘I popped into the hall on my way here. Honestly, though; I would have stayed at home if I’d known Fred didn’t need me.’

  ‘Why, what’s up?’ Evelyn didn’t seem her usual buoyant self. ‘Do I detect a lovers’ tiff with you-know-who?’

  ‘Hush!’ She put her finger to her lips. ‘No, if you really want to know, they’ve had to cart old man Weatherall off to hospital. It’s a long story.’

  ‘He’s not dead, is he?’

  ‘Who knows? He’s definitely not tip-top.’ There had been no news from Dr Brownlee or Gillian Vernon since they’d left and Evelyn couldn’t decide if this was a good or a bad thing.

  Brenda sympathized. ‘So everything’s up in the air?’

  ‘Everything.’ Evelyn held back a strong urge to share all the details.

  ‘No, now is not the time to announce our engagement,’ Cliff had said late last night as they lay in his bed and she’d pressed him to make firm wedding plans. ‘Let’s hang fire until after I’ve told Dad.’

  ‘When will that be?’ The fact that Cliff was still dragging his heels had niggled at Evelyn through a long, sleepless night. After all, it made her sound needy, like orphan Oliver begging for more.

  ‘Soon,’ he’d assured her, his lips against her forehead.

  ‘Before Christmas?’

  ‘Soon,’ he’d repeated before turning away. He’d got out of bed to switch off the light then come back and gone straight to sleep without a final goodnight kiss.

  And this was really what had put her in a bad mood all day.

  ‘How about a game of gin rummy?’ Brenda suggested, glancing around the sparsely populated room. ‘Or dominoes? Oh no; wait a second. Look what the wind’s blown in!’

  The door opened and Grace entered with Una.

  Brenda jumped up and ran to greet them with enthusiastic hugs. Both were wrapped up in winter coats and hats, attracting plenty of attention from the few drinkers at the bar.

  ‘I’ve brought a letter for Joyce.’ Grace took the pin out of her hat then removed it and ran a hand through her fair curls.

  ‘From Edgar?’ Brenda drew her old friends across the room and made mock-formal introductions. ‘Mrs Mostyn, Miss Sharpe, meet Miss Evelyn Newbold of the Women’s Timber Corps.’ She drew up two more chairs and sat them down to form a close circle. ‘Joyce should be along to join us any minute.’

  ‘Good; I hoped she would.’ Grace didn’t mind driving in the dark but having to dim her headlights according to wartime regulations made her wary of the back roads. ‘I didn’t fancy driving all the way out to her farm. I hear it’s not easy to find.’

  ‘You can say that again. Anyway, Mrs Mostyn, it’s good to see you. Let me buy you a glass of sparkling lemonade. And Una, what’ll it be?’

  Taking their orders, she went to the bar where Fred Williams served her more slowly than she would have thought possible, fiddling with bottle tops and fumbling with glasses so that by the time she returned with the drinks Joyce had joined their group.

  ‘A letter!’ Joyce’s face lit up as she took the longed-for envelope from Grace. She’d only just sat down but she sprang up again and retreated to the quietest corner to read its contents.

  ‘Lucky her,’ Brenda murmured. ‘I’m still waiting.’

  ‘For one from Les?’ Una wasn’t up to date with events at Dale End and hadn’t heard about Hettie. While Brenda told her, she listened quietly, head to one side. ‘That’s terrible news,’ she whispered. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  ‘It just shows: you never know what’s round the corner.’ Grace took in her surroundings. The Snug at the Cross Keys was small and badly lit, with rows of horse brasses glinting to each side of the fireplace and scenes of fox hunting decorating the walls. Everything could do with a good spruce-up, she decided.

  ‘You can say that again.’ Brenda had waited almost a week for a message about the funeral. Every time she’d heard the faint ring of the telephone from inside her billet, she’d hoped it would be Les but it had only ever been a call for Dorothy, worse luck. ‘Anyway, you’re looking well,’ she told Grace.

  ‘I am well, ta,’ Grace confirmed while Brenda explained to Evelyn about the baby. She sat quietly sipping her lemonade, one eye on Joyce.

  ‘No offence, Grace, but she has the look, don’t you think?’ Brenda asked.

  Una was puzzled. ‘What look?’

  ‘The one all women get when they’re having a baby. They have an air, as if they belong to a club that the rest of us can’t join. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Una hadn’t thought of it before, but now that Brenda mentioned it, Grace’s look over the past few months had softened yet grown more distant and secretive at the same time. ‘It doesn’t seem five minutes since we were bridesmaids.’ Time stretched and contracted like elastic. Grace’s husband was in Burma; her Angelo had been moved again – this time from the seaside sanatorium to a POW camp in Lincolnshire, where he’d been given a job in the canteen, cooking for his fellow prisoners. The letters came every week, no less loving, and yet … Well, he was so far away.

  ‘Have you heard from Bill?’ Brenda wanted to know all of Grace’s news.

  ‘Not for a while. I write to him twice a week, though.’ Burnside happenings: rehearsals for a Christmas carol concert, the ups and downs of Bill’s tractor repair business now that Maurice Baxendale was in charge, changes for the worse at Brigg Farm since young Neville Thomson had died. ‘Fingers crossed my letters reach him.’<
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  Evelyn listened with a distracted air to stories about people she didn’t know. She learned that Grace and Una, as well as Joyce and Brenda, had something in common. Each woman at the table, like so many others in the country, lived with an aching lack of certainty about the fate of their loved ones. They laid their heads on their pillows at the end of each day and closed their eyes without knowing if their nearest and dearest lived to fight another day or were wounded, imprisoned, tortured or dead. Staving off the hammer blow to their hearts, shrinking away from the sword over their heads – nothing could describe the agonized feeling of long-distance, war-torn love.

  Then the door opened and Cliff came in with Dorothy and it was back to the here and now, back to Christmas trimmings and gay talk.

  *

  Dearest Joyce,

  Well, here I am in sunny Biggin Hill, a long, long way from deepest, darkest Yorkshire. As you know, I was flung straight into the thick of things; no time for settling in and getting to know the chaps in my new squadron. Mike Kirk and I flew out to Eindhoven on the second night we were here; a short hop over the Channel, and we came back safe and sound, thank goodness.

  I’m not complaining, though. I like the set-up here – it’s clean and efficiently run under Squadron Leader Mason, who seems a decent chap. You know the type – clipped moustache with an accent to match. He’s seen more action than most, with a bigger tally for direct hits than any of us serving under him. On my third day here he gave me a guided tour of my new Spitfire PR Mark V. You’ll be pleased to know that this little beauty has a higher victory-to-loss ratio than either the Hurricane or the Lancaster so she’s set to become the backbone of Fighter Command. The squadron leader himself took me up on a test flight, full throttle at 2,850 rpm. We flew her into a flick-roll at 460 mph and got two and a half rolls out of her.

  Joyce read slowly, relishing the confidence that Edgar placed in his new plane. She smiled at his attention to technical details.

  So, it’s been a whirlwind of activity since I arrived and this is only my second chance to sit down and write a letter to the girl I love – that’s you, Joyce Cutler, in case you were wondering. I hope you didn’t take too much to heart the guff I spouted in my last letter. I’m feeling more cheerful now and more hopeful that I’ll soon be back with you for good. How are you, my darling? Do you still miss me as much as I miss you? These are strange times that we live in – using our brains and brawn to meet the challenges war sets us while at the same time our hearts are elsewhere. Mine is with you and always will be, for ever and ever, amen.

  Are you still happy to hear this, or has it grown old and stale? You’re so far away, Joyce. All I want is for us to be close.

  This was more like it – Edgar laying his heart bare, trusting her, holding nothing back. My absent, faraway love!

  The murmur of background talk grew louder with the arrival of Dorothy and Cliff but Joyce didn’t look up from Edgar’s letter.

  And now, dearest, I have some important news that I hope will please you. Squadron Leader Mason has put me on photo reconnaissance duties. This takes me away from our nightly raids over Germany, so less midnight scrambling and dicing for me, for a while at least.

  Joyce felt her heart leap and her hands shook as she reread this last paragraph. Less dicing with death, less fear of bullets tearing through flimsy fuselage, the seizing up of propellers, the plunge to earth.

  It’ll be mainly daytime flying for me from now on, with a photographer on board to gather the information we need on enemy aerodromes, factories, dams and such like, with maybe the odd dogfight thrown in if we’re unlucky enough to be spotted. But don’t worry; this new Spitfire of mine will keep me out of trouble.

  There – how about that? Reconnaissance is my bag from now on. I was pleased as punch, as I hope you will be.

  Joyce’s eyes skimmed the rest to focus on Edgar’s signature at the bottom. Written boldly, ending in an upward flourish, followed by three crosses – kiss, kiss, kiss. She would read it properly later, again and again by the light of her candle.

  Cliff entered the Snug and rapidly took in the situation. He looked for Evelyn behind the bar then scanned the room to see her sitting with her new Land Army pals, gossiping like a bunch of old washerwomen. He bridled and went to order himself a drink, leaving Dorothy to join their group.

  ‘So, you two, we’re expecting to see you tomorrow at our village hop,’ Brenda said to Una and Grace.

  ‘Am I invited?’ Grace reminded Dorothy that she was no longer a Land Girl. ‘Anyway, you’ll have to count me out. My mother-in-law has invited me to supper.’

  ‘Oh, what joy!’ Brenda recalled some of the differences of opinion she’d had with Edith Mostyn over petty rules and regulations. ‘Rather you than me. How about you, Una – will you be putting on your glad rags for the Rixley contingent?’

  ‘I wish I could,’ she said with a sigh. This was only half true, since Una was devoted to Angelo and no RAF boy would ever get a look-in. Besides, she was perfectly happy to spend the Saturday before Christmas in her room writing cards and wrapping presents. ‘We all put our names in a hat, and I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.’

  ‘So who was?’ Joyce rejoined the group with a spring in her step, smiling at Grace as she sat down next to her. ‘Ta for this,’ she said, patting the letter in her skirt pocket.

  ‘Kathleen and Elsie will be coming, all being well. Then there’s our new recruits, Pat Holden and Joan Quinn—’

  ‘Girls!’ Dorothy interrupted. Energy and excitement sparked off her like electricity. ‘Can we concentrate on who’s doing what tomorrow night? Joyce, will you take hats and coats as people come in? Not so fast,’ she remonstrated with Evelyn who had stood up hastily to go to the bar. ‘I’m putting you in charge of serving the half-time refreshments. Brenda, I hope you remembered to telephone the hostel about sending over a big batch of scones and some sausage rolls?’

  ‘Oh, drat,’ Brenda muttered. ‘No, sorry – it completely slipped my mind.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll ask Ma Craven for you,’ Una offered before Dorothy had time to go off the deep end. ‘It’s very short notice but I trust she’ll manage it somehow. Scones, sausage rolls and what else? Shall I ask her to send over some slices of pork pie?’

  At the bar Evelyn squeezed in next to Cliff, who was still waiting for his beer. ‘How does your dad stand it all day long?’ She jerked her thumb towards Dorothy, who was busily orchestrating the final preparations for the dance. ‘In my opinion, a little goes a long way as far as your sister is concerned.’

  His smile was thin and he was on edge, hoping that Evelyn wasn’t about to renew the pressure she’d put him under the night before. ‘Dotty isn’t like this all the time,’ he replied defensively. ‘Actually, this is her on a good day. You wouldn’t want to see her on a bad one: flat out in bed, moaning and groaning.’

  ‘Well, your dad’s a saint to put up with it. Half a pint of shandy, please, Fred.’

  Cliff was about to move away with his own drink when Evelyn put her hand on his arm. ‘Hang on; I’m not infectious, you know.’

  He flinched but stayed where he was. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I haven’t said anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. No one knows our secret except for Joyce and Brenda – and Dorothy, of course.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He relaxed and took his first sip. ‘The thing is, Evelyn, there’s been a development.’

  She frowned then let him take her by the elbow and steer her away from the bar. ‘What kind of development? When?’

  Better get this over with. Cliff was wary of women’s emotions; he found that they often ran out of control. Let’s hope she doesn’t make a scene. ‘This afternoon. I had to drive over to Dr Brownlee’s surgery for some new pills for Dorothy.’

  Evelyn thought back through the day; she’d spent a morning in the woods cross-cutting followed by an afternoon divided between snedding and stripping bark. When she arrived back at the castle, Cliff’s
car had been missing. ‘So that’s where you went. And Dr Brownlee had some news?’

  ‘About the old man. They got him to St Luke’s but he was too far gone. He didn’t last the night.’

  Evelyn drew a deep, shuddering breath, allowing the news to sink in.

  ‘Pneumonia; the old man’s friend. There was nothing they could do.’

  ‘Was anyone with him?’

  ‘The niece, for what it was worth.’

  Struggling for something to say, Evelyn nevertheless felt glad that Colonel Weatherall hadn’t died alone.

  ‘That’s him; snuffed out like a candle. That’s us; well and truly up the creek.’

  ‘But it’s not as if we didn’t expect it,’ she remonstrated. ‘And at least we know where we stand.’

  ‘Yes, in the middle of bloody nowhere!’ Why couldn’t Evelyn get it into her head that Acklam was the best place for them? Where else would they be able to live rent-free without anyone poking their noses in?

  His raised voice attracted the attention of one of the old-timers propping up the bar. ‘What’s wrong with you, Cliff? Have all your birds flown the coop?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ He banished the frown and forced a smile. ‘So, Evie, now you know the latest,’ he went on more calmly. ‘Brownlee asked me to keep an eye on things on behalf of the family. I promised I would, as long as my pay was guaranteed.’

  Evelyn nodded, though it unnerved her to see how quickly Cliff could switch moods and how he chose only to see what was under his nose. ‘What about me? Am I to stay or go?’

  ‘Your name didn’t come up. The main thing is, I’m under orders to board up the doors and windows. I’m to put up Keep Out notices.’

  ‘I wasn’t even mentioned?’

  The smile softened and his voice grew more cajoling. ‘No, but that’s a good thing, don’t you see? It means that with luck no one will think to notify the Timber Corps that your boss has died. For the time being we can chug along as before.’

  Dorothy freely admitted that she loved being in charge of the hop. ‘I’m the only person with enough spare time to get things organized,’ she confided to Una, who looked much younger than she said she was, which was twenty-one. It was because she didn’t wear any make-up, Dorothy decided. Plus the fact that she was so small and slight. Hardly any bosoms. She should invest in a better brassiere. ‘Besides, someone has to take charge. Otherwise Christmas would consist only of roast turkey and Yorkshire pud.’