The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘I reckon it’d be only fair to get hay-making and the harvest over first. I owe the Squire that much. What d’you say?’

  Kate nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. It looks like being a good one and we’re all short-handed as it is. We’ll go after harvest.’

  They walked back across the marsh and stood on the top of the western dunes to watch the sun set behind Brumbys’ Farm, silhouetting the farmhouse and the buildings against the bright orange sky.

  The peace of the place they both loved so much wrapped itself around them in its cloak of serenity.

  It was difficult to believe at that moment that there was a war going on; that together they had already taken part in it and that in a few months’ time they would be caught up in it completely.

  She felt an overwhelming sadness. With a certainty she could not explain, Kate knew in that moment that their lives would never be the same again.

  Twenty-One

  By the end of August, even at Fleethaven Point, the newspaper headlines were beginning to dominate their lives, pushing even the long, exhausting days of harvest into second place.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ Danny waved the daily paper under Kate’s nose. ‘They’re getting closer; bombing Midlands towns now, though they’re still concentrating on the south-east.’

  ‘Really.’ Kate grabbed the paper and scanned the newsprint. She jabbed her finger at the picture of a crashed Heinkel on a British beach. ‘They’re not getting it all their own way, though.’

  ‘Far from it! The RAF are really coming into their own now.’ Danny rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘They reckon there are dog-fights going on over the Kentish coast most of the day.’ He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips in excitement. ‘I’ve made up my mind, Katie. It’s the RAF for me an’ no mistake.’

  A picture of the injured airman they had pulled from the sea came into her mind. She shuddered inwardly at the thought that Danny could so easily end up like Philip Trent; baling out over enemy territory, injured and totally dependent on the good-will of complete strangers to rescue him. Resolutely, she pushed such morbid thoughts from her mind. No doubt Philip Trent was back in the air by now, maybe even involved in these dog-fights Danny spoke of. She wondered what had happened to him. Was he still alive?

  She hoped so.

  Aloud she said, ‘Good! Then it’s the WAAFs for me.’

  ‘Well, that’s it then. We’ve been an’ gone an’ done it now,’ Danny said as they emerged from the recruiting centre. ‘Me in the RAF and you in the WAAFs.’ He grinned saucily. ‘I hope they know what they’re letting themselves in for.’

  Playfully, she punched his arm. She felt better now that it was done. There was no going back and her family would just have to accept it.

  As if reading her thoughts, Danny said, ‘Still thinking about yar mam?’

  Kate nodded.

  ‘She had a rough time in the last lot,’ he reminded her. ‘First Ernie Harris getting killed; yar mother thought a lot about him.’

  ‘I can’t remember him. Can you?’

  Danny shook his head. ‘He was Grannie Harris’s eldest. Joined up when he was only sixteen.’

  ‘Me mam never talks about anything to do with the last war. It’s as if she wants to forget it all.’

  They sauntered back towards the railway station, walking close beside one another but not quite touching, and reminiscing about their childhood, piecing together the snippets they knew of a time they could scarcely remember, yet knowing that what had happened then had shaped their own lives.

  ‘And now we have to do it all again,’ Danny said. ‘It’s sad for the older folk, when you think about it. They called it the “war to end all wars” and yet here we are only twenty odd years later into another. All those families who lost folk in the last war risk losing loved ones this time around. Like Grannie Harris – she easy might, and there’ll be plenty of families like her. Ya can understand ’em feeling bitter.’

  It was not quite as Kate had imagined. When their papers arrived on the same day about three weeks later, she and Danny were told to report to training camps miles away from each other. Some romantic notion had led her to imagine them arriving together, being kitted out together, training together, working together.

  Reality was entirely different.

  As she packed a small suitcase – so different from the huge trunk that had been filled with ‘three of everything’ when she had been leaving home to go to school – she glanced around her bedroom. On the window-sill was the whelk shell. Smiling wryly at her own sentimental foolishness, she popped it into the corner of her suitcase and snapped the lid shut.

  They were able to travel as far as Lincoln together but then they had to catch different trains, one going north, one going south.

  ‘Seems as if they’re hell-bent on separating us,’ Kate grumbled.

  ‘How – was it when ya came to leave?’ Danny asked. They had said their goodbyes separately to each set of parents. ‘I got the shock of me life when ya mam put her arms round me and gave me a real bear-hug. I reckon there were tears in her eyes.’

  Kate stared at him. ‘Really?’ She shook her head wonderingly. ‘She’s a strange woman, my mother. I think she’s fond of you, deep down, but it takes a war to make her to show it!’

  ‘What about you?’ he persisted.

  Kate shrugged. ‘Almost off-hand really. She just said, “Well, ya off then – tek care of ya’sen” and that was it. Of course,’ she added wryly, ‘she still has Lilian.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Kate. You’re not still jealous of that poor kid, are you?’

  Kate pulled a grimace. ‘No – no, I’m not. If anything, I feel sorry for her. She seems such a lonely child.’

  ‘Not so much a child now. What is she – fourteen?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. She’ll be leaving school in another year.’

  Kate shook her head and, mocking her mother’s voice, she said, ‘Oh no. Our Lilian’s clever. Our Lilian’s going to university.’ She smiled then and added, ‘To be fair, the kid is clever and she’s happy at the Grammar School – well, as happy as she’d be anywhere. She’s so serious all the time – no wonder she hasn’t any friends.’

  There was a silence, then Kate asked softly, ‘What about your mam? Was she all right when you left?’

  Danny’s eyes were troubled. He nodded, ‘She was very brave, but I suppose it must bring back a lot of memories of the last time – seeing the young men off to war, not knowing if they’d ever come back.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘And young women too, this time. Oh, Katie, do be careful, won’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘You, too, Danny. You too,’ she whispered.

  There was half an hour before the train Kate had to catch left. In the café they sat across the table from each other, hardly speaking. They’d said everything and yet they’d said nothing. There was so much they could say, so much that still lay between them.

  They sat together in an oasis of silence while all around them was the bustle of imminent departure. Most of the men were in uniform, while their families clustered around them; proud, tearful, apprehensive.

  They heard the sound of a train approaching the station.

  ‘Come on,’ Danny said, getting up. ‘That’ll be yours.’

  Now there was no time left to say anything and suddenly there was so much to say.

  ‘I had so hoped we’d be on the same camp,’ She raised her voice to him as they weaved their way through the crowded platform.

  ‘We might be – eventually. They shift people about quite a bit and I think you can apply for – what do they call it – remustering, I think it is. Here, let me put those on the rack for you.’

  ‘What on earth is remustering?’ she asked as he heaved her baggage up and then stepped off the train again. They stood on the platform, close but not touching, facing each other.

  ‘It’s when you apply to go into a new type of job.’

  �
��You’ll write?’ Kate said with sudden urgency.

  Danny smiled lopsidedly. ‘I aren’t much of a letter-writer, Katie.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I just want to hear from you sometimes; just to know you’re . . . safe.’

  He nodded. ‘All right.’

  ‘And when you get a posting, be sure to let me have your new address?’

  Again he nodded.

  ‘And we could try to get leave at the same time, so we can be at home together.’ She was babbling now, desperate to put off the moment of parting.

  ‘That might be difficult.’

  ‘Oh, but we could try. Promise me you’ll try, Danny . . .?’ The shrill whistle sounded and doors banged. ‘Oh no, not yet . . .’

  ‘You must get on the train, Katie . . .’

  Then suddenly she was in his arms, being held in a fierce hug. ‘Katie – take care,’ he whispered huskily against her hair. Then he released her suddenly and pushed her towards the train.

  Tears blurred her vision so that she stumbled as she stepped into the carriage. The door slammed behind her and by the time she had wrenched open the window, the train was already moving.

  She waved frantically, leaning out of the window until billowing smoke hid him from her view.

  The moment she entered the sleeping-quarters at the recruitment depot, time seemed to tilt. Kate shuddered. For a moment it was like catapulting back in time into the cheerless dormitory at the boarding school. But then the image faded, for coming towards her, almost bouncing towards her would have been a more apt description, was a plump, jolly-faced girl with short brown hair and laughing hazel eyes.

  ‘Hello, come on in and make yourself at home. We’ve all just arrived today, so we’re still getting to know one another.’ Like Kate they were all still in civvies, some dressed in high-heeled shoes and summer dresses, their hair carefully curled, whilst others wore plain, flat-heeled shoes and skirts and cardigans.

  ‘I’m Mavis Nuttall,’ the friendly girl was saying, ‘and this is Jill Porter, but that’s as far as I go, I’m afraid . . .’

  The faces in front of her began to introduce themselves one by one but there were so many that after the first few, Kate gave up trying to remember them and merely smiled and nodded.

  ‘What’s yours?’ asked Mavis.

  ‘Kate. Kate Hilton.’

  ‘You can have this bed between me and Mavis,’ Jill offered.

  ‘Shall we all leave our stuff here and go in search of food?’ Mavis suggested. ‘My stomach says it’s tea-time!’

  There was general laughter and agreement and a sudden flurry of activity as everyone prepared to leave.

  ‘We’ll get settled in later,’ Mavis promised cheerily. ‘I hear they’re pretty strict on tidiness.’ She pulled a face. ‘And I’m the world’s worst. Me mother says my bedroom’s like a pig-sty.’

  At the mention of pig-sties, Kate felt a sudden surge of longing for home sweep through her. The farm, the Point and all the people there. And Danny – especially Danny. Where was he now, she wondered? What was he doing? Was he feeling as lost and mesmerized by everything as she was at this moment?

  The first day seemed to be taken up with various intelligence tests.

  ‘That’ll be me on my way out before I’ve been in a day,’ Mavis moaned. ‘It’s like being back at school.’

  Inwardly, Kate shuddered, although she thought she had coped quite well with the tests.

  The following day, when they were given their six-digit number, poor Mavis was flustered again. ‘Thick as pea soup, me. I’ll never remember this.’

  Kate laughed. ‘Well, you’ll have to, else evidently you’ll get nothing. No pay, no leave and – no food! You know what the sergeant said – your number’s more important than your name now.’

  ‘I know,’ her new friend wailed, and bent her head over the piece of paper with her number written on it.

  The next few days passed in a blur. Form-filling, medical checks and inoculations, drill and uniform issue. Having queued for their kit of about sixty different items, they staggered back to their quarters.

  ‘Feels like a hundred and sixty when you try to carry it all,’ Mavis laughed as she dumped it on her bed and began to sort through it. ‘How are we supposed to get all this stuff in this kit-bag?’

  ‘Wear most of it, probably,’ Kate suggested.

  Mavis gave a shriek of laughter and held up a large pair of navy-blue knickers. ‘Have you seen these? Passion-killers, if ever I saw ’em. My gran wouldn’t be seen dead in a pair like this!’

  Kate giggled. ‘We’d call them “apple-catchers”.’

  Mavis blinked. ‘Eh?’

  Kate sat on the side of the bed and rocked with laughter. ‘A pair like that could hold quite a lot . . .’

  Puzzled, Mavis looked at the item of underwear again and then, understanding, ‘You mean when you’re apple-scrumping. I’ve never heard that one before. I see what you mean.’ She gave another hoot of laughter. ‘I don’t reckon you could run very fast with the farmer after you and these full of apples.’

  ‘What on earth are you two laughing about? Share the joke,’ Jill called.

  In moments, all the girls in the room were convulsed in laughter and, minutes later when their NCO came to give them a demonstration as to how to make their beds in the required manner and how to lay out their kit for inspection, there were still stifled giggles when it came to the folding and laying out of a particular garment!

  ‘Kit inspection first thing tomorrow morning,’ the NCO said as she left the room.

  Kate surveyed her belongings on her bed. ‘What did she say we have to do with our civvies, Mavis?’

  Her friend was again studying the scrap of paper in her hand. ‘ . . . Six-five-nine. Er – parcel ’em up to be sent home.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Kate began to fold her clothes. ‘Can you remember how to lay out all this kit? I’ve forgotten what she said already.’

  ‘ . . . Five-nine. Nope. Jill’s good at that,’ Mavis said, nodding towards the girl bending over the bed on the other side of Kate. ‘She’s promised to go through it again with me tonight.’

  ‘Great! Can I watch too?’

  ‘ . . . nine. Got it! At least – I think I have. Yeah, ’course you can. Come on, let go and find the mess.’

  ‘Oh my,’ Kate teased, ‘we’re learning all the names, even if we can’t memorize our number!’

  Mavis grinned good-naturedly. ‘Anything to do with food, Kate, and I can be absolutely relied upon to remember it! Come on . . .’

  Jill stood at the end of Kate’s bed, scrutinizing the kit laid out on it. ‘I should refold all your sheets and blankets for a start – they’re not very neat. Your greatcoat goes on top of them and your cap on top of that.’ She took a side-step and stood at the foot of Mavis’s bed. ‘Shoes go on the front row – soles uppermost.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll never get the hang of it,’ Mavis muttered.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mave,’ Jill said cheerfully, ‘neither will Kate by the way she’s juggling with her irons and toothbrush. Other way round, Kate. That’s it. Where’s your button stick? Oh, there it is. It should be on that same row.’

  ‘Seems okay now,’ Jill said when the two girls had reshuffled everything to her direction. ‘Can you both remember it for tomorrow morning?’

  Mavis sighed. ‘Not a chance. What about you, Kate?’

  ‘I can remember all the main items, it’s the little fiddly things I can’t remember where they go.’

  ‘Well, if we do okay with the inspection we get the rest of the morning off,’ Jill told them and then spoilt the promise of some free time by adding, ‘to finish marking every item of kit!’

  There were groans all round. ‘How do you know all about the lay-out then?’ Mavis asked. ‘Not that I’m not jolly thankful you do,’ she added, anxious not to offend.

  Jill shrugged. ‘Older brother in the RAF,’ she explained. ‘He used to practise when he came home. I used to watch him a
nd when the NCO was showing us earlier – well, it was a bit different naturally, but the basic idea seems to be the same.’

  ‘Right,’ Mavis said, shuffling all her items of kit into a big heap at the end of her bed. ‘Now I’ll have a go on my own.’

  She began to lay everything out on the bed once more, from the sheets, blankets and bolster at the head of the bed, right down to the shoes – ‘Soles uppermost,’ Mavis muttered as she worked – at the foot.

  Two hours later, just before lights out, Kate and even Mavis could finally lay out their kit perfectly.

  After the first three days, it ail seemed to get easier. The girls were so friendly; they had so much to talk about because they all came from different places. It was nothing like that awful school, Kate thought. How could she have even thought it the same?

  There had been only one occasion when she had been sharply reminded of Miss Denham. The NCO had suddenly said one day, ‘Hilton, your hair is too long . . .’

  Kate had drawn in her breath sharply and held it, waiting for the dreadful sound of snipping scissors being brandished. She almost winced in anticipation.

  ‘But as long as you tie it back and keep it firmly under your cap . . .’

  Kate let out her breath with relief. School, and all its horrors, faded once more.

  On the sixth morning, Mavis, who always seemed to be first with news of any sort, burst into the hut, the buttons on her jacket heaving up and down in her breathlessness. ‘Guess where we’re all going?’

  The other girls turned blank expressions towards her.

  ‘Home,’ said one girl with a heartfelt sigh.

  ‘Abroad,’ suggested another hopefully.

  ‘Don’t be daft – we’re not trained yet.’

  ‘My feet think they’ve had quite enough training,’ muttered someone else.

  ‘No idea,’ Jill smiled, sensing Mavis’s desire to be the bearer of what looked like good news. ‘You tell us, Mave.’

  ‘Harrogate!’

  ‘Harrogate?’ chorused a dozen voices.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Whatever for?’