A Christmas Promise

by Annie Groves

  Tilly watched the girls barracking each other, knowing that it was just nerves taking hold, and they didn’t mean to insult each other. She also knew that on any given day these girls would, like Dulcie and Sally and Agnes, risk their lives for each other and she for them.

  The trouble here was, they didn’t have a clue what they were going into, and as they had volunteered they had no choice but to get on with it. Disappointment was etched on their faces as they stepped onto the paddle steamer, knowing they weren’t being sent to Italy or France where all the action was

  ‘The Isle of Wight isn’t so bad. At least it’s quiet,’ Tilly said, to a chorus of groans.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘It is not your fault,’ said Carlo, the Italian POW. Italy surrendered to the Allies back in July, and, although he was still officially a POW, his status had changed. No longer the enemy, the Italians were now one of the allies and he remained with them as a much-appreciated farmhand. He had been Agnes’s silent support in times when she could so easily have been run off her own farm by the hostile Darnleys.

  ‘That doesn’t make it any easier,’ Agnes replied.

  ‘You ’ad to show them who the boss was,’ said Mavis. ‘They’d ‘ave walked all over you otherwise … That old man was always a law unto himself. Your father kept him in check, though, but when he died – oh my Lor! Did old man Darnley fancy himself then? Too right he did; he thought he had this farm in the bag.’

  ‘I didn’t want any trouble, though,’ Agnes said, as she stood with the others in the yard and watched the old man’s two sons being taken away by the military police, both having been arrested for desertion. The older of the two – the surly one who terrified the life out of Agnes – had arrived on crutches only days after her father died, apparently.

  ‘It turned out that he didn’t have his toe blown off after all,’ said Mavis, leaning on her pickaxe. ‘He worked in the military hospital in Portsmouth.’

  ‘And when he found out he was being sent abroad he covered his foot in plaster, grabbed a couple of crutches and hopped it – literally,’ said Joan, another land girl, and she and Mavis burst out laughing. ‘Oh, we shouldn’t, Mavis.’

  ‘I know, but we’ve all got to do our bit – if this was the Great War, those two would have been shot!’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ Agnes felt really guilty now, knowing that when the man from the Ministry of Agriculture came to see the papers he was surprised when Agnes told him there were more people working on the farm than had been put down on the last form.

  ‘Yes, but if you’d known they were deserters you’d only have worried, and got yourself all upset,’ Mavis said matter-of-factly as the two young men were confined in the back of an army truck, handcuffed to grim-faced burly military policemen.

  ‘It’s not right,’ called the surly Darnley. ‘The Eyetie can walk around my farm as he pleases and I get locked up!’

  ‘It ain’t your farm, Darnley, it never was, so shut your mouth!’ Agnes heard the policeman say as the truck door was slammed shut. She turned now to the old man, who seemed to have shrunk more than ever.

  ‘I’m sorry, Darnley,’ she said quietly. ‘There is still a place here for you, though.’

  ‘Fer me? I think my time here is done, miss. I ain’t got no place here no more.’ He tilted his cap over his eyes now and Agnes could see he was riddled with shame. ‘I’ll be off now to fetch my things and bid you good day.’

  There was nothing Agnes could think of to say to the man who, when she first came here, thought he was king of all he surveyed.

  ‘I will be in the high pasture,’ Carlo said quietly. ‘I need to bring the sheep down.’ He looked up to the pewter sky, low and heavy now with the promise of snow.

  Agnes sighed. She felt that now more than ever she needed her family – Olive, Barney and Alice – around her.

  Inside the farmhouse, a bright fire warmed the cosy sitting room where she and the land girls spent their evenings while Carlo spent his time in his room in the eaves of the house, painting or drawing. The Darnleys always spent their time in the village pub.

  Agnes opened her bag and took out the piece of paper Archie had given her when she had first arrived here: ‘If there’s anything you need, Agnes, you just ring the police station and I’ll get a message to Olive for you.’ Slipping her coat on now, Agnes made her way to the bottom of the lane where there was a telephone box. It would be Christmas soon … She wondered if it would be too late.

  ‘Agnes telephoned this afternoon, Olive,’ Archie said, calling into the Red Cross shop on his way home from the station. ‘She wondered if you would like to go to the farm for Christmas?’

  ‘Christmas in Surrey?’ Olive said, drinking in Archie’s intimate smile. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘She invited all of us,’ Archie said, his eyes twinkling. ‘I have leave, and the kids would enjoy a few days in the countryside.’ His voice was powerfully persuasive and it didn’t take Olive any time to make up her mind once she knew she wouldn’t be parted from Archie.

  ‘She told me she would be thrilled if we could all make it and –’ Archie looked a little sheepish now – ‘I’m so glad you agree because I told her we would be there on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Oh, Archie, you are a one,’ Olive said in mock irritation, but she knew that she could never be angry with him, no matter what. Archie was the most gentle man she had ever known and now she could not imagine one day without him.

  He brought colour to her life, he made her see things in a way she had never thought she would before: the beauty in simple things, and a rippling stream, and light breeze, summer guise in winter days. She heard a melody and it gladdened her heart. When Archie touched her, even if only for the briefest moment in passing, he sent bolts of ecstatic delight soaring through her. Olive could not recall her days alone now, and her letters to Tilly were full of the things that she and Archie did, or she and Archie said.

  ‘I’ll see you this evening. We can talk about it then,’ Archie said as Olive’s eyes, diamond bright, sent a message of love his way. ‘I’ll ring Agnes back now. She’s waiting in the telephone box.’

  ‘Oh, no, she’ll be freezing,’ Olive cried. ‘The wireless said they were due for snow.’

  ‘I’d best get to it then,’ Archie said, wishing that Audrey Windle wasn’t hovering in the background so he could take Olive in his arms. He knew his look must have alerted her suspicions when Audrey said, laughing, ‘In broad daylight, Sergeant.’ Colouring slightly and giving a small self-conscious laugh, Archie swiftly touched Olive’s hand before turning to leave the shop.

  ‘I’ve never seen him so happy, Olive,’ Audrey said on a sigh. ‘You make a lovely couple.’

  ‘I didn’t think it was so obvious that we were a couple.’ Pleasure suffused every vein in Olive’s body now, and she was glad that Audrey had suspected, so at last she could talk about her love for Archie.

  ‘I don’t think it is something he can hide. He can’t take his eyes off you; they follow you around the room like a lovesick schoolboy’s, and when you leave the room he doesn’t know what to do with himself until you get back.’

  ‘Oh, Audrey,’ Olive said, thrilled, ‘we’re so happy – it doesn’t seem right.’

  ‘It is right, Olive.’ Audrey patted her arm. ‘I’ve never seen anything more so.’

  ‘Come here, darling, let me fix your hat,’ Sally said, holding on to a beautiful red festive snood that Olive had knitted for Alice from an unravelled cardigan to go with the coat made from an old blanket, which she had dyed the same colour red.

  ‘Oh, she does look lovely,’ said Olive, bringing in a bowl of freshly laid eggs from the hens in the back garden. Sally smiled up at Olive, who gave the child a reassuring pat on the arm, knowing Alice was the most contented of children, and not a bit spoiled by the attention lavished upon her by everyone.

  ‘About the raids, Sally …’ Olive began. There had been a number of air raids that month and she was worried for
Alice’s safety.

  ‘I don’t want to be too far from her now, Olive,’ Sally said, ‘especially after all she has been through.’

  ‘That’s exactly why she should go somewhere safer, Sally.’ Olive tried to be as gentle as she could, remembering how hard it had been saying goodbye to her own daughter. ‘And if she went to stay with Agnes for a while at least she would be with someone she knew and she would feel secure.’

  ‘I don’t know, Olive. I’ll have to think some more about it.’ Sally knew Olive was right and what she was saying made perfect sense – she was being selfish wanting to keep her half-sister close, but she loved her so much …

  ‘It’s not easy for anybody, Sal,’ Olive said gently, patting her arm. ‘If anything should happen, you know … you would never forgive yourself.’

  ‘I know, Olive,’ said Sally. ‘We’ll see how the Christmas visit goes and then I’ll be more sure.’

  ‘Whatever you think’s best, Sal.’ Olive knew Sally would make the right decision and would not be charmed, cajoled or coerced into giving up her darling sister.

  Olive was looking forward to Christmas, most of them together at the farm. The only disappointment was that Tilly would not be home.

  Olive didn’t know where her daughter was stationed now, except that she wasn’t in London. Having written to tell her that they had all been invited to Surrey, Olive hoped that Tilly received the news before Christmas and wouldn’t be fretting over the latest reports of increasing air raids over London.

  ‘Did you get a chance to tell Tilly about Drew?’ Sally asked.

  Olive sighed; she was hoping Sally would let the matter drop now. Tilly had moved on and so, presumably, had Drew. These were different times now. Life wasn’t as simple as it had been once.

  ‘I will one day,’ Olive said, feeling her stomach turn, not knowing if it was something she’d eaten or whether it was guilt that was making her feel queasy.

  ‘Listen up, girls,’ Tilly said excitedly over the clickety-clack of the Remington typewriters. ‘There’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that some of us are getting leave for Christmas – the bad news is that we don’t know who yet? Maybe they’ll make us draw straws.’

  They had many different jobs to do in their Isle of Wight posting, not only clerical, but manning the ack-ack guns, although they would never be allowed to fire them, and they were so close to France they were almost on the front line.

  ‘There’s only so much excitement a girl can take here,’ Janet said cynically, longing to get back to the dance halls of London’s West End.

  ‘I heard someone say that things are getting busy in London,’ Tilly answered. ‘Maybe that’s why they want some of us to go back? So we’re close by if they need to give us the call? But that would mean we’d get leave but might be called up for duty at any point.’

  ‘I don’t mind being busy – you know me – and this place is far too quiet for my liking.’ Janet efficiently filed the reports she had finished typing.

  ‘I don’t mind if I’m not going. Pru said, ‘because I’m not bothered one way or another.’

  ‘Would that be because of that nice Scottish sergeant you were dancing with the other night?’ Tilly asked with a knowing grin.

  ‘Might be?’ Pru said enigmatically, before Tilly threw a pencil at her head.

  ‘You sly dog, do tell.’ They all clamoured around Pru’s desk, where she gave them chapter and verse on her new relationship.

  ‘I’ll cry my leg off if they send me back to London,’ Pru said, genuinely worried.

  ‘I quite like it here, too,’ said quiet Veronica, ‘although not for the same reason as Pru.’

  ‘I’m dreaming of Mum’s home cooking. Nobody makes roast potatoes like my mum,’ said Tilly, closing her eyes at the memory.

  ‘My ma can’t cook,’ said Janet, just as Tilly was called in to speak to the commanding officer. Moments later, she came out of the office and the girls gathered round to hear the latest news.

  ‘Right,’ Tilly said matter-of-factly, ‘good news, girls. Janet and I are going home and Pru and Veronica are staying here.’ As Janet and Pru jumped for joy, Tilly looked at Veronica and shrugged.

  ‘Who’s knee did you sit on to make that happen?’ Janet asked when she was calmer, her face wreathed in delight as she sat on her desk, legs swinging.

  ‘Easy, there were only two home leaves left and I told them that Pru and Veronica wished to stay here,’ Tilly smiled, knowing that she had done the right thing.

  ‘Oh, Tilly, you are wonderful,’ Pru said, ‘don’t you think so, Veronica?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Veronica said with little enthusiasm. ‘I’d never get to Scotland and back here in forty-eight hours anyway so it’s best for those two to go.’

  ‘Well, there is another bit of good news.’ Tilly smiled. ‘Janet and I have possibly only a few days’ leave. However,’ she said slowly, pointing to Pru and Veronica, ‘you two have ten whole days – you lucky ducks!’

  ‘Whoop whoop!’ Pru made the sound of a tug boat as she circled the room. ‘Christmas, here we come!’

  ‘Well, in that case I’m thrilled,’ said Veronica in a flat voice. She never showed much emotion and Tilly wondered if she really was thrilled. She’d said she liked it here, but ten days would be long enough for her to get home to Scotland and back.

  ‘How do you fancy coming home with me for Christmas, Janet? Mum won’t mind. The more the merrier,’ Tilly said enthusiastically, knowing Janet, coming from a huge Liverpudlian family, wasn’t carrying the burden of being her parents’ only child.

  ‘Are you sure, Till?’ Janet was thrilled. Her ma had enough to do without feeding her ever-open mouth too. ‘That would be great. I’ll send a telegram to me mam; she’ll be made up.’

  ‘Won’t you miss going home?’ Tilly asked, hardly able to imagine Christmas without her family.

  ‘Oh, to be back in London,’ said Janet. ‘The dance halls, the picture houses, the boys …’

  ‘… the constant danger,’ said Tilly, as she straightened her paperwork and put the cover over her typewriter. She couldn’t really say she was interested in dance halls or boy right now, not when Drew’s voice was still fresh in her memory.

  ‘There’s going to be a bit of shake-up around here, too,’ Pru said. The island had come under attack of late and she didn’t want to leave her new love here without her.

  They all knew that news of the raids was being supressed because of the intense secrecy needed for the forthcoming Allied invasion of Occupied Europe.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind staying here?’ Tilly asked Pru later, as they got ready to go the local church dance.

  ‘Are you kidding? It’s going to be so exciting, what with everything that’s needed for the invasion hidden on this island.’

  ‘I think it might be safer back in London than it is here,’ said Veronica, knowing the Pluto oil line, of utmost importance for the successful end of the war, went the whole way across the Isle of Wight, right down the cliffs and under the sea before being picked up by tankers to refuel out in the briny.

  ‘It would only take a well-placed bombing raid to blow the whole island to kingdom come,’ Janet said, sipping her drink.

  ‘That’s why the authorities have kept this place top secret.’

  ‘For obvious reasons,’ said Tilly. They had hardly dared to think of the consequences of living each day with the threat of the world’s biggest firework display, and now she was trying not to worry about her two friends who actually preferred to stay here.

  ‘It doesn’t bother me about not going home, dearie,’ Pru laughed. ‘I’m having the time of my life. I doubt they’d give you a special dispensation to go home just because you miss your mum, though.’ She clicked her tongue in jovial admonishment, saying, ‘Oh, you really can’t wait, can you, Tilly?’

  ‘I’m freezing here,’ said Tilly shivering. ‘I’m miserable when the weather’s cold.’ If she was honest she mis
sed her home comforts as much as she missed Drew. And if she should happen to bump into him in London … no, she would put that thought out of her mind.

  It wasn’t the weather that was getting her down, she was worried that her memories of Drew were beginning to lose their potency, which scared – no, terrified – her. One day, she might wake up and not remember his face or his voice and, what was worse, that he might be feeling this way, too.

  The following day, early, among many tears and promises to keep in touch, Tilly and Janet were on the paddle steamer going home. Cheering, Pru and Veronica waved them off. As the dawn broke Tilly and Janet caught sight of Southsea in the distance.

  ‘I’m still not sure how you managed to wangle this.’ Janet asked as they landed on terra firma.

  ‘Maybe somebody heard my plea for home leave,’ Tilly said, hardly able to contain the excitement at the prospect of seeing her mother’s face and knowing that since Agnes and Dulcie had left Article Row there were a couple of spare rooms if the other girls wanted a London billet.

  Orders were that Tilly and Janet had to report for duty at the War Office in Whitehall, opposite Downing Street and close to ‘the Fortress’, a concrete structure, which, like an iceberg, concealed most of its bulk below the surface and was purportedly impervious to bombs.

  She and Janet entered the vast hall of the War Office and halted at the security desk. Their papers were scrutinised and a further telephone check made before they were issued with a temporary pass-card and were told to report to the sergeant-major.

  ‘Do you think we’ve done something wrong?’ asked Janet.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tilly answered, ‘but we’ll soon find out.’

  They were shown to the sergeant-major’s office by a competent woman who, at close quarters, was not as old as Tilly had first thought. On knocking, they were ordered to enter.

  Tilly led the way, not by choice, more by gentle force as she was pushed forward by Janet into the large expanse of room.

  The sergeant-major, a huge man, looked disapprovingly at their hair, their uniform and their shoes, before telling them, ‘Personnel living within an hour’s travelling time and who have domestic accommodation can be billeted at home, as we are very short of barrack and billet facilities in London right now.’ Tilly loved her mum with all of her heart but she also knew that, Olive being the protective and nurturing type, Tilly would not be able to move without her motherly interrogation. So she was going to have to be firm and not let her spoil her like she always did.