A Strong Hand to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  Bill pulled into the Phelps’ farm and stopped outside the gate leading into the cobbled yard outside the farmhouse door. He gave another anxious glance at Linda. He knew there was something wrong with the girl though he wasn’t sure what. Maybe he’d find out later. He raised his voice to the others and said, ‘Any of you want to get out and stretch your legs, I’d say you’d have time. Sam Phelps would be late for his own funeral.’ Linda gave a tight smile knowing Bill was right and slipped out of the van after him. She stood leaning against the five-barred gate watching him stride towards the house, scattering chickens before him as he went.

  Most of the others had got out too and were huddled together, laughing and smoking, but Linda made no move to join them. She was no company for anyone tonight, though she was glad of the cool breeze on her face which was still crimson and burning hot from the evening’s confrontation.

  Bill hadn’t quite reached the farmhouse door when it was wrenched open from the inside and Sam Phelps’s children, six-year-old Sally and five-year-old Charlie burst through it, calling, ‘Linda, Linda!’

  Linda waved and the children tore across to her and flung themselves onto the other side of the gate. ‘Come on,’ Charlie urged, ‘we got something to show you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Molly’s had her pups,’ the more serious Sally said. ‘They’re ever so sweet, come and see.’

  ‘I can’t. Your father …’

  ‘He’ll be hours yet,’ Charlie said airily. ‘He ain’t even shaved.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sally agreed with a giggle. ‘His face is all over soap, like Father Christmas.’

  ‘And it won’t take a tick,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Linda said, allowing herself to be persuaded. It would, at any rate, stop her going over and over the awful row at home and how they would live together after it. Anyway, she liked the Phelps’s children and they seemed to like her, as most children did. Funny that, she thought. It had been difficult to relate to any children in the beginning after she’d got out of hospital, but she found the more she did with them, the easier it got.

  She clambered over the gate, as it was easier than opening it and then, with a hand in each of the children’s, she ran across the yard. Linda knew where the sheep dog would be, in the special whelping box Sam had prepared for her in the barn, just behind the farmhouse. He bred good sheepdogs, did Sam, and always got a fair price for Molly’s pups. Jenny knew he’d been as anxious to get the birth over as the children.

  ‘How many pups has she had?’ Linda asked Charlie as they turned the corner.

  ‘Five,’ Charlie said, and Linda had her head turned to him as they rounded the corner. She didn’t notice the man, until she almost cannoned into him. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, no. It is I who is the sorry one,’ the man said. He was a stranger to Jenny, though he wore blue dungarees and carried a shovel so he was obviously a worker on the farm. His accent was even stranger. He had a squarish face with eyes the colour of a tawny owl and a firm square chin and an unruly mop of brown hair on his head.

  To Linda’s utter amazement, he gave a small bow and tried to click his heels together, not easy to do wearing wellingtons, thought Linda, hiding a smile. The children beside her giggled.

  ‘That’s our prisoner,’ Charlie told Linda dismissively. ‘He always does that. His name is Max Schulz and he’s German.’

  In all her life Linda had ever met a real live German. She’d talked about them, sung about them, even sworn about them, but she’d never met one. She’d never met a prisoner either, and wondered if she should shake hands or merely ignore the man. But innate good manners came to the fore, she couldn’t just ignore someone – it was what Jenny’s mother and grandmother did to her often – and so she held out her hand with a smile.

  ‘How do you do, Mr Schulz,’ she said slowly, accentuating every word.

  ‘I do very well,’ Max Schulz said. ‘Do you also?’

  ‘Yes,’ Linda said, with a slight laugh.

  ‘My English is not good at times,’ Max said. ‘But, it gets better.’

  ‘It’s heaps better than my German.’

  ‘Heaps?’ Max said with a puzzled frown. ‘What is heaps?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Linda said as Sally urged, ‘Come on, Linda. They’ll be calling you in a minute and you won’t have seen the pups.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Linda said. ‘I must go, Mr Schulz.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Goodbye, Linda.’

  Her name sounded funny in Max Schulz’s strange accent and she found herself smiling at him again before being hurried away by the children. She admired the tiny blind puppies suckling at Molly’s teats, while the sheep dog lay with a self-satisfied smile on her face as she whined a greeting at them.

  ‘Daddy said we mustn’t touch them until their eyes are open or Molly may bite,’ Sally said.

  ‘And we’ve not got to forget Molly and make a fuss of her too,’ Charlie put in.

  ‘Quite right,’ Linda said, kneeling beside the box and stroking the sheep dog gently. ‘You’re a good girlie, aren’t you, Molly? Clever girl,’ and Molly licked Linda’s hand softly while her tail began to wag.

  ‘Linda?’ came the shout, and she got to her feet and dusted off her clothes.

  ‘Got to run,’ she said.

  ‘Come and see them in a few days,’ Sally said. ‘Dad says they’ll be more fun when they can run around a bit.’

  ‘They will,’ Linda said, as they began to walk quickly back to the van.

  ‘Thought we’d lost you,’ Bill said, helping her up.

  ‘I was admiring newborn puppies,’ Linda explained.

  ‘Oh, ah,’ Sam said, ‘they’ve been dying to show them off to you, the nippers.’

  Bill began backing the van down the farm-track, no easy task as it was so narrow, and he growled, ‘Never mind bloody pups. All this way and you’re never bloody ready.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got a nine-to-five job like some,’ Sam protested. ‘And there’s a powerful lot of work to get through these light spring evenings. There’s still cows to be milked, stock to feed and late sowing to do. Least you townies haven’t the farm ags breathing down your neck, telling you how much and what to grow in your own damn land.’

  ‘Heard you got one of the POWs from the camp in Sutton Park?’

  ‘You heard right,’ Sam said. ‘I only had the one land girl, Ruby, after young Cynthia went off and got married. Mind you, Max is worth two of the girls. He’s stronger for one thing and he knows what’s what. Seems he had a farm in Germany.’

  ‘Are you not worried about being murdered in your beds?’ one of the Irish step-dancers asked.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody daft,’ Sam said. ‘Old Max is quite a decent bloke and he likes the chance of being out in the open air again. Anyway, he doesn’t sleep in the house. They round them up in Army trucks and take them back to camp every night. He isn’t the only POW helping us farmers out you know.’

  ‘Well, I still wouldn’t feel safe.’

  ‘They’re just like us. If you met them, you’d find that out for yourself,’ Sam went on.

  ‘Not in my book they aren’t.’

  But Linda knew what Sam meant. She was glad she’d had the opportunity of meeting the German Max Schulz, and finding him not the monster she’d previously imagined all Germans to be.

  The hall was packed, Linda saw from her place in the wings as she was waiting to go on. It was a good crowd, with many Americans. She’d spotted Peter and Jenny at the back, with Francis and Martin beside them. She swelled with pride that they’d come to see her after all Norah had tried to do to stop them. She hoped they were enjoying the show. Bill Fletcher had opened it and softened the audience up with a collection of his ribald jokes. Mindful of the words with different meanings on the two sides of the Atlantic, he made a play on those first in his broadest Brummie accent and soon had the audience laughing.

  Then it was Sam’s turn. He enjoyed audience pa
rticipation and had a host of willing helpers up on stage, hoping to catch Sam out, but his sleight of hand was amazing. The act became more and more elaborate and almost unbelievable until the audience were open-mouthed with admiration, as indeed Linda herself often was when she watched his act.

  After that, Bill thought the audience needed some light relief, so the step-dancers came on with their Irish jigs and reels. The audience could stamp and clap to those, and they did both. A series of sketches followed. By this time, the audience were well warmed up and then Linda stepped on to the stage. Bill introduced her as usual as ‘Our very own nightingale, Miss Linda Lennox’. The applause was perfunctory as Linda crossed the stage. She saw the look of pride on Jenny’s face and all fear and nervousness left her and she smiled.

  Always she opened her spot with the song that had given her the nickname, ‘A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square’. For Jenny it brought back the terrifying ordeal they both had gone through in the bombed house, and she felt tears prick her eyes. The American and British boys were stunned into silence, but as Linda’s voice rose, they remembered the girls they’d loved and left behind. Linda followed on with ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ and finished with ‘You Are My Sunshine’.

  When she left the stage, there were howls of disappointment and Bill Fletcher had a job calming the audience. Wisely, he cut his act short and brought on Flora McMillan, who without further ado gave them a rendering of ‘Green-sleeves’ followed by ‘There’ll Always Be An England’.

  Linda had thought Flora’s second song to be a mistake as most of the audience were American, but Flora was the recognized star of the show and a law unto herself as well as terribly jealous over Linda’s success, so she’d felt it sensible to keep her mouth shut. The commotion began when Flora attempted to sing ‘Three Coins In The Fountain’.

  It began with catcalls for Flora to get off, answered by others that demanded the return of Linda Lennox. Some didn’t remember her name and called her ‘The Little Nightingale’, but the sentiments were the same. Flora faltered at the noise from the hall, but continued as any true professional might. However her voice was eventually drowned by first the slow handclap, closely followed by the drumming of many feet on the floor.

  Knowing how an unhappy audience could turn into an unruly one, Bill was dismayed and undecided about what to do. ‘Put the kid back on,’ Sam suggested.

  ‘What? And put Flora’s back up further? Are you mad?’

  ‘Do you need her?’

  ‘We might not, but that’s another issue,’ Bill reminded him. ‘Any road, Linda won’t go on if it’s going to upset Flora.’

  The noise rose steadily in the hall and the audience began making missiles of their programs and throwing them on stage, Bill thought he’d have to risk annoying Flora. He went backstage and tapped on the door. ‘It’s you they want, duck,’ he told Linda. ‘Would you do another few numbers?’

  Linda hesitated. She knew how much it mattered to Flora to succeed in this. It was all the woman had, for God’s sake. Seeing her dilemma, Sam broke in ‘Can you sing accompanied, Linda?’

  ‘Of course.’ That’s how all the lessons had finished at Francesca’s, with Linda singing to her accompaniment – and even now when Linda visited as a friend they often did it just for fun.

  ‘Well then, why don’t you sing and let Flora play?’ Sam suggested. ‘She’s a good pianist.’

  The noise and disruption from the hall had reached crescendo level. ‘Oh God, who’s going to tell them?’ Bill said. ‘And will they listen?’

  Linda felt suddenly angry with the unruly hordes. ‘I’ll tell them,’ she said, her voice as cold as steel. ‘And they’ll listen.’

  Before Bill, Sam or anyone else could say a word to stop her, she strode onto the stage, which was littered with crumpled programs and anything else the audience had to hand. They were booing and catcalling; many had upended seats, others were stamping and clapping. The noise and general upheaval were horrendous. Linda felt her stomach contract in fear, though no one would have known as she strode over to the mike and said quietly, but firmly, ‘Would you please kindly resume your seats?’

  The very softness of her voice cut through the general cacophony of noise and there was a lessening of it, but not enough for Linda’s liking. ‘I said,’ she repeated, raising her voice, ‘would you resume your seats?’

  She had everyone’s attention now, including Flora’s, who’d at first attempted to carry on and then had given up in despair. ‘You want some songs, right?’ Linda said, raising her hand for silence. ‘Well, that’s no way to get any.’ She indicated to Flora at the piano and went on, ‘Miss McMillan will not play for louts and I will not sing for them. Resume your seats and have better manners and we’ll see what we can do.’

  All of Linda’s adopted family and Peter Sanders had watched Linda walk alone on to the stage. She looked small by herself and terribly young to face such a rowdy, raucous audience. Jenny had been incensed. Where, she wondered, were Bill and Sam, who’d promised her faithfully they’d look after Linda? This was a fine way of doing it! She’d have something to say to them both afterwards. Martin and Francis had risen to their feet. ‘What the bloody hell are they thinking of?’ Francis said. ‘Fancy letting a kid face that on her own.’

  He began pushing past them to the aisle as he spoke. His intention was to get Linda off the stage, bodily if necessary, and knock the head off those responsible for sending her out there. But her clear voice asking people to sit down stopped him in his tracks, and when she repeated it, he returned to his seat and watched the men shamefacedly righting the chairs and rearranging them in rows as Linda told them off good and proper.

  ‘By God, that’s telling ’em,’ Martin said quietly in open admiration.

  ‘And how,’ Francis agreed.

  Peter had not been so amazed; he’d had a little experience of Linda’s courage and determination before, but he saw how distressed Jenny had been. He longed to put his arm around her or cover her small hand with his own, but knew he could do neither, so he turned his attention to the stage again.

  Bill and the rest of the cast watched open-mouthed. As the servicemen set the hall to rights, Linda went over and had a quiet word with Flora. The older woman was upset and a little distraught, but faced the fact that her days as a singer-performer were over. She’d had catcalls and boos in many locations, hence her initial jealousy of Linda, but never so many as tonight. Now Linda had given her a way of redeeming herself and still remaining a useful contributor to the group. When Linda approached the mike again, it was to say, ‘Right are you all ready? We’re beginning with “We’ll Meet again”. I don’t want any blighter here not to sing it, and I want to hear you doing it. So let’s go, Miss McMillan! When you’re ready.’

  She had the audience eating out of her hand. She went on to sing, ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major,’ ‘White Cliffs Of Dover,’ ‘Lili Marlene’, ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ and finished off with ‘Bless ’Em All’.

  Before she started the last song, Linda said, ‘After this, the concert is over and the concert party is going home to bed. So, I’d like you all to sing your bloody hearts out and then leave quietly, so we can all go home to be fit and healthy to play and sing another day. Now, are you ready?’

  Before they could recover from her speech, she was into ‘Bless ’Em All’ and everyone sang along with her; the noise the audience made threatened to lift the roof. Afterwards, while they applauded as loudly and wildly as before, they seemed to accept it was the end of the concert and began collecting their belongings and filing out in almost a reverent silence.

  ‘You have summat special,’ Bill said to Linda later. ‘I don’t just mean singing solo, but dealing with unruly crowds.’

  ‘They weren’t that bad,’ Linda said, embarrassed by his praise.

  ‘Don’t belittle yourself,’ said Flora McMillan. ‘You do have a special gift both in dealing with people and singing, which I don’t have.’ She laid
a hand on Linda’s arm and said, ‘You and I could make a great team.’

  That night, Linda had also realized that, good as her voice was, alone and unaccompanied, she could go so far and no further. She smiled at Flora McMillan and said, ‘You could be right.’

  She was dropped off later that night in Bill Fletcher’s van, glad that Martin and Francis were there with Jenny and the two older women had gone to bed. The boys were loud in their praise of her performance that night, and Jenny was as proud as punch. She told Linda how delighted Peter had been too.

  However in bed that night, for all the excitement of the evening, the exhilaration she’d experienced at controlling the servicemen, and the acclaim she’d received from the rest of the cast because of it, the face that floated in Linda’s mind when she closed her eyes was that of the German POW at the Phelps’s farm. She remembered how deep set his eyes were, and how his eyebrows were bushy and met across the bridge of his nose. When he spoke, his teeth were even and very white.

  She recalled his square hands on the handle of the shovel and the sprinkling of brown hairs on the back of them, and his firm, well-muscled arms in the short-sleeved checked shirt he wore under the faded blue dungarees.

  Linda couldn’t understand herself. She was pretty enough to arouse the interest of the boys around her home, though there were precious few about over the age of eighteen. Since she’d started with the concert-party, she’d had to repel many advances. Nice though some of them appeared, she had no interest in them. Why then was she so interested in Max Schulz? She’d only met him for a brief time that evening, and hadn’t spoken much more than a dozen words to him. Just before she dropped off to sleep, she told herself it was because he was different, not the usual type of lad she was used to meeting. He was German for one thing and a prisoner for another. If I met him again, I’d probably have as little interest in him as any other lad, she told herself, and held that thought in her head as she drifted off to sleep.