Wave Me Goodbye

by Ruby Jackson

  ‘No, you’re a young woman who’s catching a cold. Just as well it’s a lecture. You can warm up and put more clothes on before the sheep this afternoon. Come on.’

  They hurried to the main building where, they were later told, a fascinating lecture on arable farming was in progress but, instead of being allowed to go in, they were yelled at for daring to enter wearing such filthy Wellingtons. ‘No one ever teach you to wash off mud before you enter a building?’

  ‘We did,’ began Grace, but she was given no chance to explain that the new mud had been acquired on their way to the classroom.

  ‘Never make excuses, and keep your eyes open for pumps. Now get out and get clean.’

  They backed out as quickly and as gracefully as they could, washed off the mud and went back in.

  Betty Goode was waiting for them, her round rosy face tense with anxiety. ‘You missed the first half of the lecture but I’ll share my notes. It was an absolute hoot. Did you get breakfast?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Betty,’ said Grace, just as Olive sneezed loudly.

  The two other girls looked at each other anxiously, over Betty’s head, and Grace made a swift decision, based on her ever-present memories of neglect. It was not just that Olive was sneezing but the girl was shivering and the entrance hall was quite warm.

  ‘I’m taking her back to Miss Ryland. If they call my name, tell them I’ll come as soon as I can.’

  Olive protested feebly.

  ‘Come on, the rest of the day in bed with a hot-water bottle and you’ll shake it.’ She smiled. I’m doing for someone else what Rose and Daisy and Sally and their families have always done for me.

  It was a lovely feeling, until she remembered that she had not contacted her friends. They’re not Megan; they’ll forgive me because they care about me.

  She shepherded Olive back to the hostel, where she found Miss Ryland in her office. The manager looked up from the papers she had been reading and was visibly startled by the sight of two bedraggled land girls.

  ‘Why aren’t you two in class?’ Her usually calm and friendly voice was now quite icy in tone.

  Olive sneezed loudly several times in quick succession; almost drowning out Grace’s explanation. ‘Olive’s unwell, Miss Ryland. She’s been sneezing and sniffling all morning and so I thought it was better to bring her back and to put her to bed for the afternoon.’

  Miss Ryland’s well-defined and savagely plucked eyebrows seemed to rise up into her hairline. She got to her feet and stood surveying first the room and then the girls. Olive hung her head. But Grace, although as frightened as she had been as a child when confronted by her older sister, stood her ground.

  ‘And who, Miss Paterson, gave you the authority to decide who does or does not take an afternoon off?’

  ‘She’s not taking an afternoon off. I think she’s really sick.’

  ‘You’re a doctor. Silly me. I thought you were a land girl. You do know that there’s a war on and taking time off, without permission…? Or did you ask the lecturer for a pass?’

  Olive began to cry. She was shaking. ‘Please, it’s all my fault, not Grace’s. I didn’t wear my liberty bodice.’

  There was a stunned silence, eventually broken by Grace. ‘It’s not her fault. She’s too sick to make a sensible decision and I don’t think Mr Churchill would want her to—’

  That was as far as she got.

  Miss Ryland was looking at her as if she could not believe her eyes – or ears. ‘Enough, you insolent girl. How dare you consider yourself capable of deciding what Mr Churchill would or would not want?’ She turned. ‘As for you – Turner, is it? – return to the lecture room immediately.’

  Olive turned and, without a word, ran from the room.

  Grace waited. Long experience had taught her that to attempt an excuse, to say anything, would only make matters worse. Miss Ryland stood, looking down at the telephone on her desk. Was she expecting it to ring or did she mean to make a telephone call, to complain about Grace Paterson?

  ‘Neither of you is dressed for winter conditions,’ she said at last.

  ‘We haven’t got coats yet. I thought I could ask you about them.’

  ‘Need I remind you that everything is in short supply? If there is some material for coats, surely we want it to be given to the manufacturers of coats for our brave soldiers, who do not have a warm comfortable hostel to return to at the end of a working day. Greatcoats were ordered in plenty of time and will be delivered as soon as possible. To win this war we will all have to be disciplined, principled; we will have to make sacrifices for the greater good and, Miss Paterson, we will have to learn to obey the chain of command and not, do you understand me, not presume to think for ourselves.’

  She turned and went to the window. Grace stood, wondering whether she had been dismissed or if she was to wait. She did not wait long.

  ‘Come here, girl.’ Grace joined her at the window. ‘Do you see that building over there?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Ryland.’

  ‘It’s a pigsty. Clean it. I expect it to be a shining example of good animal husbandry by teatime. Now get out.’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ said Grace, and walked out, closing the door very quietly behind her.

  After supper that evening, Betty Goode loaned Grace the notes she had made at the lecture and then she play-acted the lecturer in the hope of cheering Olive, who was lying in bed.

  ‘He was a real hoot, Olive; everything you need to know about farming in one easy lesson. Picture him, not much bigger than me and hands like big hams – do you remember hams in butchers’ windows? He’s got about three hairs stretched across the shiniest head you ever saw and he’s wearing absolutely immaculate dungarees and shoes so shiny you could see your face in them. Don’t think he’s ever been on a farm, but anyway, this is him, fingers stuck in his braces, striding up and down the lecture hall.

  ‘ “Growing crops is simple, ladies. First, plough your field, modern tractor or the magnificent British horse. Next, harrow it. What comes next? Of course, sow the seed. We has machines as do this evenly nowadays or you can scatter – will depend on your farm. Next, weed as crops grow – the damned things will be the bane of your life. After that, you can leave it to Mother Nature. Water, if necessary. And then, the joy of watching golden wheat swaying in a late-summer breeze or superb English peas fattening on the climbing stocks. Lovely. And what do we do last? Yes, harvest and enjoy the fruit of your labour. Now, ladies, could anything be easier than that?” He did not wait for an answer. “No, thought not.” ’

  Grace interrupted the performance. ‘Sorry, but didn’t he say, “It’s bloody awful”?’

  ‘No, he did not, Grace Paterson. Kindly don’t interrupt again.’

  They were pleased to see a smile on Olive’s pale face.

  ‘I’ll continue, Olive,’ Betty said, and, taking a deep breath, she got herself back into character.

  ‘ “Now should you be asked to plough, here’s a little tip. Ladies has delicate ‘sit-down upons’. I always suggest a nice, if somewhat scratchy sack of straw, easier to find on many a farm than the farmer’s missus’s best cushion. Tractors is noisy, slow, and they have a bad habit of stalling, but, on the bright side, you won’t get so many horseflies buzzing around you. You will still get them, and wasps and bees buzzing away. Just think of the honey from the bees – can’t think why the Good Lord invented wasps, oh, yes, must be fertilising. See, everything in its place. Any questions?”

  ‘Of course, he didn’t give anyone a chance to ask him anything,’ said Betty, ‘but said, “Thought not. All right, where are you now? Some of you is pigs, some hens. Have a good afternoon.” ’

  Grace laughed. ‘You remind me of a friend who’s a real actress, Betty: you’re good, isn’t she, Olive?’

  Olive seemed too weak to reply. She had shivered through the talks on the care of pigs, and the egg producer’s place in the war effort – ‘a hen will lay an egg if it’s properly fed, watered and housed, but you
can’t order it to lay. She’ll do it when everything is right and it’s the farmer’s job to see that conditions are perfect’ – gulped tea at the break between lectures and had then caused a small sensation by collapsing in the lavatory. Miss Ryland had been forced to admit that Miss Turner should be given two aspirins and a hot-water bottle and sent to bed.

  Grace, on the other hand, had spent what was left of the afternoon and much of the evening cleaning the pigsty. All bedding and food waste had to be shovelled out, and the floor and walls washed down. George, the head dairyman, passing the pigsty in pitch-darkness and, alerted by the sounds of scrubbing, had slipped in quietly and seen a girl scrubbing the floor in the dark.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted.

  Grace had no idea how to answer. She was exhausted, filthy, and knew she smelled as badly as the sty had smelled before she had begun to clean it.

  ‘I can see you’re scrubbing a mucky floor in total darkness. Whose bright idea was this?’

  For a mad moment, Grace thought she might throw down her scrubbing brush and run, but she tried to remain calm. ‘Miss Ryland,’ she almost whispered.

  ‘Ryland? Good God.’ They stood in the covering blackness for a few moments in silence and then George obviously came to a decision. ‘Go and have a hot bath. You’ll miss tea if you don’t hurry and I’m sure she doesn’t want that.’

  When Grace hesitated, he yelled, ‘Go!’ Then added more gently, ‘Now, lassie. Get cleaned up. I’ll explain to Miss Ryland.’

  Grace, now in tears, had stumbled in the pale light of the moon to the hostel.

  Later, as Grace left the dining room, Miss Ryland had stopped her. ‘You seem to have misunderstood me this afternoon, Paterson. You must learn to listen very carefully and to follow orders to the letter. Now we’ll say no more about the matter and, just this once, I’ll make no report.’

  Grace could not bring herself to say, ‘Yes, miss,’ and after nodding abruptly she ran upstairs to join her friends.

  She had still not written to her friends in Dartford but she sat beside Olive’s bed and thought about them. She compared them with Miss Ryland and castigated herself for being such a poor judge of character. ‘I actually thought she was a kind woman, a good and honest woman. Well, she doesn’t compare with the goodness and kindness of either Mrs Brewer or Mrs Petrie. I didn’t misunderstand her; I understood her only too well. She told a lie.’

  ‘Liberty bodices and woolly socks,’ she announced to the unusually quiet room. ‘I promised a liberty bodice to Olive.’ Then, turning to Olive, she added, ‘I think I have a pair of socks I can give you too, once we get you well.’

  Other land girls stood up and began to go through their often-meagre belongings.

  ‘Every old lady in my home village knitted me warm stockings, Grace, and I bet there’s a knitted vest in here too,’ said a slightly older girl from Yorkshire. ‘Hate wool against my skin, I do, but what can you say to old ladies?’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ chorused several of the girls, and everyone laughed.

  ‘I can’t take all this,’ Olive wheezed, as knitted socks, stockings, vests and even knickers began to pile up on her bed.

  ‘Don’t fret; we’ll sort it out. We’re all in this war together, aren’t we, ladies?’ Betty made Olive smile as she pulled on a very large woolly vest over her pyjamas. Then she took it off and held it up. ‘Bit too small for me, this one. Any takers?’

  Grace, still feeling both angry and unhappy, began to relax in the camaraderie. This was how she had joked with her old school friends. No one would ever take their places in her affections but she smiled as she understood that these young women too would always be a special part of her new life.

  Two days later, Miss Ryland admitted that Olive was no better and telephoned for a doctor. Grace and Betty were allowed to stay with her while they waited.

  Grace had no experience at all of medical care and could make no suggestions as to how to bring down Olive’s temperature. ‘She’s burning up, Betty. What can we do till the doctor gets here? Should we take off this heavy blanket?’ She made as if to move it.

  ‘No,’ said Betty sharply. ‘If I remember right, my nan used to put us in cold water when we had a high temperature and then quick as a wink, back into the nice warm bed, just till the temperature broke. I know she shouldn’t be in a draught.’

  Grace looked around. ‘Wish there was a fireplace. I could easily find sticks and branches in the wood. It is a bit draughty.’ She walked angrily to the small window and tried to peer out. ‘Can’t see a damn thing. I’m going to run downstairs to watch for the car coming. I can’t just sit here.’

  Olive coughed, a loud hacking cough that seemed to shake her whole body. ‘I’ll be all right, Grace,’ she wheezed.

  That frightening wheezing had been heard too often in the past few days and, combined with the burning skin that made her attempt to throw off her covers, had added to the land girls’ worries.

  Betty, who had lifted Olive up until the spasm passed, lowered her down onto the pillow. ‘You go, Grace, and bring back three cups of tea. You’d like a nice cuppa, wouldn’t you, Olive? See, Grace, she’s dying for some tea; me, an’ all. Run.’

  Grace grabbed another jumper and pulled it over her clothes. There would be time to continue the fight for the promised coats when they had Olive well. She strained her ears to hear the ring of the doorbell but all she heard was the clatter of her heavy-soled shoes on the wooden staircase.

  It was too cold to stand on the steps, looking down the driveway for the doctor’s car and so she decided to jog down to the gates in the hope of seeing it arrive. She reached the gates without seeing any vehicle of any kind, but as she stopped, leaning against the gatepost to get her breath back, she saw a bicycle at some distance. The bicycle slowly drew near as the rider fought both the wind and the weight of the ancient machine. Disappointment. A woman was riding the bicycle.

  Grace had never felt so powerless. Olive needed a doctor, the doctor who should probably have seen her two days ago, but just then the wind blew the cloak worn by the cyclist and Grace saw a bright red lining.

  ‘A nurse,’ she shouted. ‘Nurse, nurse,’ she cried again as, her energy restored, she ran down the road to meet her.

  The nurse had no breath left for talking but she handed Grace her medical bag and, her burden lightened somewhat, they reached the hostel together.

  Miss Ryland was there to meet her. ‘We sent for the doctor. Where is he?’

  ‘You’ll have to make do with me; I’m the district nurse, Nurse Stevenson, and Doctor’s too busy. Now, if I could see the patient … Honey in hot water with maybe a splash of brandy is the best medicine for colds. I’m sure I didn’t need to cycle out all this way. The call came right in the middle of my first-aid class.’

  She was making her way up the steps and into the hostel, Grace following along behind, carrying the rather heavy and well-used medical bag.

  Miss Ryland decided to be charming. ‘We are sorry, Nurse, to tear you away from war work but we too are in the middle of the war effort and the health of our students is, naturally, our first priority. The girl is rather delicate and possibly should not have been accepted into the Land Army, especially in the middle of winter.’

  She continued upstairs at the district nurse’s side and Grace followed on behind.

  Very few of the girls had an appetite for supper that evening. There was a roaring fire in the large room used as a dining room, and a delicious smell of roasting potatoes almost hid the mouth-watering odour of roasting apples, but the room, although filled with healthy and hungry young women, was unusually quiet.

  The district nurse had taken one look at the shaking, sweating Olive and, with an angry, ‘She should have been seen earlier,’ sent her to the nearest hospital.

  ‘Pleurisy?’ the girls questioned one another. ‘What’s pleurisy?’

  ‘Ask Grace Paterson. She were with her. What is it, Grace, something l
ike pneumonia, maybe?’

  Grace, who was chopping a roasted potato into tiny pieces but making no attempt to eat it, shook her head. ‘Nurse didn’t say. I think it’s lungs but I’ve never heard of it. Really sore chest and difficulty breathing; Miss Ryland’s gone with her.’

  That news had a mixed reception. Most were pleased that the hostel manager had accompanied Olive to the hospital, but some were afraid that her doing so only proved how ill the land girl was.

  Voices were raised in anger. ‘She’s one of the girls without a coat. We was promised proper clothing.’

  ‘Only the latest intake’s short, girls,’ someone tried soothing frayed tempers. ‘And the coats is promised.’

  ‘Come on, ladies, look at the lovely supper,’ another said. ‘Eat up, that’s real custard with them apples. Tomorrow’s another day and we don’t want no more getting sick now, do we?’

  The muttering and grumbling died down as healthy appetites were appeased. Some looked round at the warm, comfortable room, with its fire, its benches and old sofas piled with cushions, the shining brassware on the walls, and reflected that, yes, the work was hard but the billet was a good one. A girl, possibly one who should not have been accepted for such arduous work, was sick, but she was receiving the best possible care. Tomorrow, they would learn even more and, one day, equipped with hard-won knowledge and experience, their lives would be even better.

  Grace’s dormitory was not so quiet that evening. Well aware of how early they had to be at work next morning, the land girls remained unable to settle down and sat up in their beds going over and over the events of the past few days. Only Grace and Betty Goode, the two most closely involved, were quiet. What was the point of talking and losing sleep? Olive was now receiving the best of care – no one, thought Grace, could have done more than Nurse Stevenson – but hospital staff surely had equipment not available to a district nurse.

  The loud ringing of the alarm clock had them stumbling in complete silence to wash and dress as quickly as possible. The working day began after breakfast and Grace was delighted to find that a lecture on crop rotation had taken the place of an on-site class on ditch clearing.