Shadow on the Land

by Anne Doughty

  ‘Shepherd’s pie, last Sunday,’ said Johnny, leaning over for the large oval dish which had been piled high with roast potatoes.

  ‘Toad in the hole, the previous one, wasn’t it?’ added Alex helpfully.

  ‘And three weeks ago?’ prompted Lizzie.

  ‘Can’t remember that far back,’ Johnny replied, as he came into the dining room once again, carrying a tray to collect up the cutlery and the remaining small items.

  ‘Beef casserole,’ Emily provided, smiling across at Lizzie, now deep in thought.

  Lizzie nodded and looked pleased while Jane and Emily exchanged glances.

  ‘I still can’t see how you magicked up such a wonderful dinner, Ma. You’ll have to explain,’ said Jane, shaking her head and appealing to her sister.

  ‘Saved up her meat coupons,’ Lizzie said promptly. ‘Knowing Ma, she did a deal with the butcher. Mince, sausage and stewing meat for three weeks and a piece of beef for your birthday,’ she went on smiling at her younger sister.

  ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, I crave your full attention,’ said Johnny, as he whisked a few crumbs from the double damask table cloth and returned to the centre of the table the small arrangement of spring flowers, exiled to the sideboard due to lack of space during the main course. ‘I go to fetch the dessert, or the desert as my dear sister Jane used to spell it,’ he announced, throwing the last remark over his shoulder.

  ‘Oh my goodness, Ma, pudding as well!’ Jane exclaimed.

  Emily took a deep breath. Johnny was carrying the tray at shoulder level, like French waiters in American movies. She need not have worried. He lowered the tray slowly and safely to the table in front of his mother, and waited, open-mouthed for their response.

  ‘Ma, how lovely!’ said Lizzie peering at the tall well-filled dishes. ‘Surely that’s not real cream.’

  ‘How pretty,’ said Jane. ‘What are all those lovely little bits?’

  Alex looked across at Emily and gave her a great beaming smile. Even Johnny didn’t know he’d had to help Emily rearrange the four beautifully-prepared dessert glasses to make a fifth when Lizzie had phoned to say she could come.

  ‘I hope it tastes all right,’ said Emily, who had never got used to the fact that the food she produced was never less than edible and often very good indeed.

  The ensuing silence reassured her. A fitting end, she thought, for the remains of the Christmas bottle of sherry and a sponge cake she’d baked, anointed with her own strawberry jam and allowed to dry out in a sealed cake tin.

  As the spoons were scraping the last delicious vestiges of trifle and cream from the pointed bottoms of the tall glasses, they heard the phone ring in the hall.

  ‘Oh bother,’ protested Lizzie. ‘That’s probably for me. I had to give them my number in case there was a flap,’ she explained, taking time to lick her spoon and put it down carefully on her side plate before she went out into the hall.

  ‘Elizabeth Hamilton,’ she said, as she picked up the receiver.

  The dining room door was open and one by one they put their spoons down and listened.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. No, I think you’re quite right. It’s not easy at all. Hold on and I’ll get him, Robert.’

  At the mention of Robert, Alex was on his feet and half way across the room. Of all the reliable people he knew at the four mills, Robert was one of the best. He took the receiver from Lizzie and asked what was wrong.

  They all listened intently, but for many minutes Alex said nothing. Only Emily, sitting at the head of the dining table opposite the door into the hall, could see him nodding his head vigorously.

  He strode back into the room.

  ‘I’m sorry everyone,’ he said quickly. ‘A plane has crashed on the edge of the Millbrook reservoir. They’ve rescued the pilot, but he’s injured and none of the men who got him out could get any sense out of him.’

  ‘But why should you do any better, Da? Why don’t they just take him to hospital and let them cope?’ asked Johnny crossly.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said Lizzie coolly.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ agreed Alex, looking down at Jane who was watching him carefully. ‘Robert knew you were here and thought you might be willing to come with me.’

  She nodded vigorously and got to her feet.

  ‘Robert also remembered that I speak German as well as French.’

  The young man was stretched out on the couch below the window in Alex’s office, the books and papers that usually rested there now stacked hastily on the floor by the filing cabinet. Robert had bandaged his head, but blood was already making a vivid stain on the white dressing. Where it was not obscured with dried blood and some dark residue released by the impact of the crash, his face was deathly pale. His blonde hair fell unkempt over his closed eyes.

  Alex took a deep breath and swallowed hard. The young German pilot who lay before him looked even younger than Johnny.

  ‘He’s passed out again,’ said Robert quietly. ‘He tried to run away when we got him out of the plane, but I think he may have broken his leg. Certainly it wouldn’t hold him, or we mightn’t have caught him.’

  ‘Da, where do you keep the proper medical kit?’

  ‘It’s in the store-room, Jane. I’ll get it for you,’ Robert said quickly. ‘D’you want anything else? Hot water?’

  Alex turned to his daughter to find she’d already peeled off her pink sweater, parked it on his desk and was now rolling up her sleeves.

  Robert returned moments later with a large wooden box. Perched on top, a bowl of hot water steamed gently. He set the bowl of water down next to her, opened the box and stood beside Alex watching as she removed the dressing, inspected the wound and went to work cleaning the young man’s face.

  ‘D’you think it was reconnaissance?’ asked Alex soberly. ‘He’s a bit young for a spy, isn’t he?’

  ‘He thought we were going to shoot him when we pulled him out of the water. He said something like ‘Nicht schlossen,’ but I only know German from war films,’ Robert replied.

  ‘He’s not a spy,’ retorted Jane sharply, as she dropped bloodstained surgical wipes into the wastepaper basket.

  ‘How d’you know, Jane? Robert asked.

  ‘Just look at his face,’ she replied, as she wiped his brow and pushed his hair back.

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ said Alex. ‘But we need to know. I don’t want to see him shot any more than you do, Robert. Do our people shoot spies?’

  ‘Oh yes. But they do get a trial as far as I know.’

  At that moment, the young man stirred, moving agitatedly even before he opened his eyes.

  ‘Please don’t move,’ said Jane quietly, ‘not till I’ve finished.’

  His eyes flicked open, wide with amazement and stared at her. Both Alex and Robert saw the look he gave her as his blue eyes met hers, but only Alex understood what he said before he passed out again.

  ‘I must be dead for you are an Angel.’

  ‘Oh the poor boy,’ said Emily, her face creased with distress, as she listened to Alex’s account of the afternoon. ‘Are you sure it was safe to take him to hospital?’

  ‘As safe as we could make it,’ Alex said firmly ‘We did manage to get assurances from the Chief Constable that he would be guarded until he was fit to be moved. Thank goodness we had a Justice of the Peace on the Board.’

  ‘I expect he and the Chief Constable went to school together,’ she said briskly.

  ‘More than likely. He was certainly sympathetic when I told him what I’d been able to find out.’

  ‘Oh Alex, what would have happened if you hadn’t spoken German?’

  ‘He had a little English, but not much use for explaining himself. I’ll tell you something though,’ he added with a little laugh, ‘he seemed to understand every word Jane spoke.’

  Alex paused, unsure how much more he should say about Jane’s part in the afternoon. He could certainly tell her just how capable she’d shown herself, but
Emily would know that already. She’d seen Jane in action many a time, whether it was splinting a bird’s wing or bandaging Johnny’s knee.

  He thought back to the afternoon and tried to remember the exact sequence of events after Jane had brought him round by bathing his face and hands.

  ‘I need to ask you some questions,’ he had begun somewhat hesitantly in German.

  He was amazed that a language he’d spoken so seldom since he was a labourer in German Township should come back to him so easily after all these years.

  The blue eyes regarded him anxiously.

  ‘This is my father,’ said Jane quietly. ‘He wants to help you.’

  The young man had turned to look at her. Just one brief glance, then suddenly there were huge tears running down his face. Jane took his hand and held it, smiled at him and said, ‘You’ll feel better soon. Drink some more water.’

  He’d wiped his tears with the back of his hand, drunk the water as obediently as a child and begun to speak, his voice husky. He’d told them he’d had to join either the Army or the Luftwaffe because it would be bad for his socialist father who had been sent to a labour camp if the family did not support the Fuhrer. Both his brothers were already dead, one shot down over England and one killed in a raid on the French airfield where he was based.

  As for himself, he did not want to fight or to kill anyone. He was trying to fly to Ireland. It was a neutral country and they would not shoot him, but he had no maps and there had been cloud over the sea when he set out from the north of France. So he had got lost.

  When he came out of the cloud and saw the coast to the west he was so happy. But when he came lower he saw airfields below him. He could see the markings on the planes. They were British and he had no more petrol. The plane was stalling and he had to bring her down quickly. He saw the lake and headed for it.

  ‘Have you a headache?’ asked Jane, before Alex could make any comment.

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes, it is very sore.’

  As she gave him some Anadin and encouraged him to drink another glass of water, Alex realised that she made tiny gestures with her hands whenever she spoke to him. She might have no German, but he was beginning to wonder just how much of the young man’s story she already understood simply from looking at him.

  ‘So what will happen next?’ Emily asked anxiously.

  Alex realised he’d fallen silent, his mind moving back over the afternoon’s events.

  ‘X-rays tomorrow. They might transfer him to a military hospital if the leg is broken. Then a P. O. W. camp. He’ll be no worse off in the North than in the South.’

  ‘Can one visit prisoners?’ Emily asked, folding up her knitting and putting back in its cretonne bag.

  ‘I don’t know. But I know someone who’ll be trying to find out.’

  ‘Would that be our Jane?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Emily looked at him and waited, and waited. Finally he gathered himself and looked into the embers of the dying fire.

  ‘I’ve never seen two people read each other like open books the way Johann Hillmann and our Jane did this afternoon. Not a dozen words between them, but his blue eyes near as big as hers,’ he said, taking a great deep breath, as he stood up and switched off the table lamp on his side of the fire.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As Emily finished the second sleeve of Alex’s best shirt and turned round to pick up a clothes hanger from the kitchen table, she saw a glint of sunlight strike the wet panes of the wide window beyond the kitchen sink. She moved across the kitchen, glanced out into the cobbled yard, noted the wind rippling the shallow puddles and sighed. It would take an hour or more with a good drying wind before she could pick peas and much longer if she wanted flowers for drying.

  Today was the first Monday in September and it was days since she’d been able to do anything in the garden, even weeding. As sure as she set foot in the yard, she’d feel the first spits of rain in the wind. One look up at the dark base of the cloud above warned her it was about to pour at any moment.

  She picked up another shirt, noticed how worn the collar had become and wondered if she should turn it before it got any worse. She sighed again. It wasn’t that she minded sewing in itself, but she did mind sitting indoors when she needed to be out in the garden.

  The high summer months had been so disappointing. After a most lovely May, full of sunshine and sudden showers that kept the garden watered, but never lasted long enough to damage the growing plants, June had been almost completely dry. She’d had to get the hose out when her back ached from carrying buckets and watering cans, but June was also endlessly sunny and warm. Whenever she wanted to do a job, she had only to change her shoes and walk outside. She’d gardened morning, noon and night, glad to have so much she could do when Alex was away for long hours and Johnny was at school or shut up in the dining-room with his final revision for his all important final exams.

  She’d been so pleased with her early vegetables. Some she’d given to the hospital in Banbridge. The rest she’d sold at the Women’s Institute market to raise funds for the Red Cross. She’d made so much money that Alex had teased her and said if she would only go into business he’d be able to retire.

  But July was a different matter. There was rain nearly every day, less sun, and humidity as bad as on a spinning floor. But unlike working on a spinning floor, there was no relief at the end of the day. The humidity persisted, making the nights clammy and sleep difficult. She’d gazed at the rotting blooms on her geraniums and viewed the well-nibbled leaves of vegetables beaten down by the rain and hoped that August would be better.

  August was even worse. There was just as much rain, but even less sunshine. Fairly, it was less humid, but she’d felt she had no energy for anything. When she did get a dry afternoon, she found herself wandering up and down the rows of peas and beans not able to decide whether to tackle the rampant weeds or to pick the swollen pods before they burst and the birds got them.

  Then Johnny went. And she was quite alone.

  She paused, took a deep breath and decided she’d done enough ironing. There were only two of them now and Alex had enough everyday shirts and clean handkerchiefs to see him through a week, never mind till tomorrow, or the next day.

  She’d done her best, she really had, but she’d not been able to hide from Alex the fact that she was so very low in spirits now there was no Johnny to help her keep them up. She refused to say ‘depressed’. Although the women’s magazines said it was nothing to be ashamed off and told you how to deal with it, she couldn’t bring herself to admit that she just didn’t know how she could keep going if the war went on much longer. It had been bad enough at times these last three years with shortages and the endless problems at the mills, but now there was one more worry, Johnny was out there too, with his sisters, learning to fly, which could only lead to certain danger, wherever it might happen to be.

  Three long years since that morning when they’d stayed at home from church knowing there was going to be a broadcast on the wireless at eleven o’clock. They’d listened in silence and then, as soon as Mr Chamberlain finished, Alex said he thought she should phone Cathy. So she had. Cathy had cried, because she knew Brian would be called up.

  But, of course, in the end, Brian had been reserved, the last thing either he or Cathy had expected.

  Perhaps she should try to remember that so far none of her worst nightmares had come true. Worrying about any of her family wasn’t going to get her anywhere. It might even make her ill and how would Alex cope then, with all he had on his plate.

  She filled the kettle and made herself a cup of tea. She’d sit in the conservatory with the flowers that weren’t rain-battered and rotten and read her book for an hour. Then, this afternoon, wet or dry, she’d go out and pick some peas for Mary Cook and take them down to her when she went for the milk.

  She’d done exactly what the Dig for Victory pamphlet said she should and planted her peas and beans every three or fou
r weeks instead of all at once. The residues of the first rows had long since shrivelled on the compost heap, but the later plantings were now heavy with fresh green pods. To her surprise, the rain had held off and now a few gleams of sun came to dry the still damp foliage and to create little pools of quicksilver where tiny drops of water lay in the broad leaves of cabbage and rhubarb.

  She gathered what she needed for Mary Cook and their own supper, and then decided to pick some more for her old friend, Dolly Love, in Dromore. Dolly might be feeling just as low as she had felt, for her Tom had gone last week. What a pity it was that Tom, and Johnny’s best friend Ritchie, only a couple of weeks younger than Johnny himself, had all been sent to different training camps though they had applied at the same time and hoped to be together.

  Emily might well have gone on pulling out weeds and thinking her own thoughts long after the peas were picked had it not been for the sound of a car on the hill. At the sudden vibration on the now warm air, she straightened up, stretched her back and listened.

  It did sound like Alex all right, but she couldn’t remember when he’d last arrived home at four o’clock in the afternoon. Moments later, she heard his car swing into the avenue, out of sight behind the flourishing hedge.

  She arrived back in the yard just as he slowed round the corner of the house and stopped.

  ‘We have a visitor,’ he said, grinning as he caught sight of her Wellington boots. ‘Do you want me to head him off and bring him in by the front door?’ he asked, as she caught the sound of another vehicle on the hill.

  But before she’d had time to consider this possibility a jeep with the big white star of the U.S. Army on its bonnet swooped down the avenue and pulled up sharply behind Alex’s Austin, a flutter of fallen leaves caught up on the wheels settling gently to the ground.

  ‘Major Hicks, how lovely to see you,’ said Emily with a great beaming smile.

  ‘And you too, ma’am,’ he said, dropping down from the driver’s seat and holding out a large hand. ‘I don’t know when I last saw a lady in muddy boots. Makes me homesick for Vermont.’