by Milly Adams
Twice more the lamb was rebuffed, and now they were all holding their breath. The fourth time the sheep let the lamb come close. She sniffed the coat for a long time, and at last the orphan was allowed to suckle. The relief in the barn was palpable, and even Joe was rubbing his hands, though he ruined his cigarette by doing so, with flakes of tobacco falling into the straw.
Ron looked from the lamb to Joe. ‘What happens when the sheep won’t let it near? Does he, you know, the little chap, does he die?’ His voice was anxious. Joe rubbed his chin, nodding a little. Oh surely not. Phyllie groaned. ‘Well, you see young Ron, we take them into our kitchen, put them into a cardboard box by the Aga to keep ’em warm, and feed them with a bottle every few hours.’
The relief on Ron’s face was obvious. Phyllie thought of his mother. Did he fear he could be, or even had been, abandoned? That damned mother had never been to see him, but she had written once or twice, so there was hope. When Joe led them across the yard she manoeuvred herself to Ron’s side. ‘Mothers always love their lambs, or children. It’s interesting, like Mr Joe said, that if something goes wrong, then there is always someone who will care.’
Ron turned. ‘D’you reckon so, miss?’
Bryan knocked him now. ‘Yes, they’ll fatten the little bugger up and eat it, that’s how much they care. That’s how much they care about children, too.’
‘Bryan,’ Phyllie’s tone was sharp, ‘don’t be so ridiculous. Of course human beings care. Look at the way mothers in the villages have taken so many children in. Your mother did for a while.’
‘Yeah, for the money.’
‘It isn’t just for the money.’ They were at the kitchen door.
‘Boots off,’ Miss F ordered. ‘And you, Bryan Anderton, stop showing your ignorance. Money doesn’t come into it.’ But Phyllie feared the damage had been done, as Ron kicked off his boots, dug his hands deep into his pockets and slouched.
There were two cardboard boxes near the Aga, and each contained a tiddlin, both of whom were trying to clamber out, bleating fit to burst, their little pink mouths wide open. There, too, was Andy, holding two baby bottles. He looked up and smiled at them all, his gaze sliding past Phyllie. She found she was holding her breath.
She said, ‘I hope we’re not disturbing you?’
‘We knew you were coming, so you’re obviously not.’ His voice was neutral, and he looked not at her but at little Clive, who was reaching up for the bottle. ‘Can I do it, mister?’
Jake was easing his way to the back of the group, but now Andy called, ‘Jake, you can start with number one. You take number two, Clive. You’re next for number one, Ron. Teachers, what we need are some children to commit to coming regularly, to feed them. It will be, I repeat, a commitment, for the teachers too, as you’ll need to stay with them. But the children will probably be here anyway, at the old barn, so it shouldn’t be beyond your capabilities.’ There it was, the challenge in his voice.
Miss F laughed. ‘We can do it with one hand tied behind our back, young fellow my lad.’ Phyllie closed her eyes. One hand, for goodness’ sake? Andy laughed, abruptly, but then it was gone. It had been a laugh, though. Miss F was colouring in her turn.
‘One hand is good enough,’ Andy said.
Phyllie felt glad she wasn’t in the firing line, but was it that? He wasn’t scowling but then again, he wasn’t smiling.
Jake was working his way to the front, reaching out to take the bottle, keeping his eyes on that, not on Andy. Little Clive was already gripping his tiddlin, fighting it and forcing the teat into its mouth. In time the tiddlin was guzzling, and dribbling the milk, his tail shaking fit to burst. Jake, meanwhile, knelt and stroked his lamb, then let him come to the teat and guzzle. It was an altogether gentler, slower affair. After five minutes, they changed to the next person. Ron did as Jake had done. Phyllie watched closely, then nodded. She had felt at the carol service that there was a decent child underneath all his bluster, and now she was even more convinced. They simply must move him from Bryan and Eddie’s sphere, somehow. Finally the bottles were finished.
Andy stood by the kitchen table, and checked his watch. ‘Tea should be ready. Off you go, and don’t forget the rota, teachers.’ He took the bottles to the sink and eased off the teats. Miss F opened the back door, but before the children filed out she said, ‘What have you to say to Mr Andy, children?’
‘Thank you, Mr Andy,’ they chanted.
Andy called over his shoulder, ‘Well done, you lot. You fed them well, particularly Jake and Ron. Gentle is good.’ He looked long and hard at Phyllie, and it was her turn to colour.
The children filed out, with Miss F leading. Phyllie turned at the door. ‘I’m sorry, Andy. I shouldn’t have hit you, especially your … Well, your wrist.’
He was using a brush to clean the innards of the bottles. ‘I think you mean my stump. Apology accepted, reluctantly. Now it must be time for you to scamper off to help Dad with the other groups.’
She wanted to slam the door, but didn’t. She wanted to take him back to the moments he had been so foul to Jake, but didn’t, for what was the point? All that mattered was that he was good to them now.
Later that evening, Miss F left with Mrs Symes, for the farm. It was time to stock-take the sugar, stashed in large tins, hidden behind the sacks of seed, in preparation for a new delivery. The jam season was almost upon them. Miss F cycled, her gas mask and her old music case hanging off the handlebars. It was in this case that she carried the record of the sugar stocks. They unlocked the storeroom, or so she told Phyllie on her return, moved the sacks, lifted down the tins, huffing and puffing, as they were so heavy, but not as heavy as they had thought. They checked the stocks against the records. They were twenty pounds short.
They had checked three times. Mrs Symes brought Joe to the store and checked it again, with him watching at Miss F’s insistence.
When she returned home, she told Phyllie the bad news, adding, ‘The problem is that Mrs Symes, Joe, Andy and you are the only others who knew where it was, though I wonder if Jake heard us talking of it that evening in the kitchen. You see, I found one of his pencils in the store, his name clearly scored near the top.’ She looked old, suddenly, and tired.
Phyllie stared. His pencil? How on earth …? No, not Jake. ‘There’s got to be another reason,’ Phyllie insisted.
Miss F sat at the table, her head resting on her hand. ‘Of course I know that, but … We can’t obtain more than our designated amount. And if we have a shortfall of produce because of this it will be advertising the loss outside the five of us. This could lead others, including the WI ladies, to think that we have actually used it ourselves. We have to keep it quiet, and make sugarless jam. I will tell the others that it’s an experiment, and I do know that the government is thinking of reducing the amount we get anyway, as a result of the convoys being bashed to bits. Dear God, this is a nightmare.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Hang on, Mrs Otis was also in the know, but surely not …?’
‘As you say, a nightmare,’ Phyllie echoed.
‘We say nothing, nothing at all. It’s our secret, just you, me, Mrs Symes, Mrs Otis and the Bartletts.’
Chapter Fifteen
Mid-June 1941, sheep washing, Little Mitherton
JOE STOOD ON the bank of the stream. ‘Late shearing, we bloody are, late. But that’s the war for you, and all down to the ministry lad who’s so wet behind the ears he leaves a splash wherever he goes, and who came when we should be washing before shearing …’ He took a breath. ‘Came with his bleedin’ orders to plant late oats, and so off we went, faffing about with the ploughing again, and here we are having to dam the stream to wash the little buggers, late.’ He scratched the back of his head, knocking his cap forward.
I think we got that, Joe, thought Phyllie but knew better than to say it. They were surrounded by her class of eleven- and twelve-year-olds, for Ron was now twelve, and Bryan, Sylvia and Prudence too.
They’d all been given parties;
a card had not been sent by Mrs Cummins, and in the absence of a present, one had surreptitiously been provided. Fanny McTravers and her auntie had packaged up a pullover for Ron and talked the post office into delivering the package, with its fabricated franking marks. The handwriting had been more difficult, but Phyllie did her best, copying from the letter she had received at Christmas, asking for more money for the fare. The pullover was sleeveless, and knitted late in the evening by Miss F, with the armholes finished by Fanny, as they were a step too far for either Phyllie or Miss F. No one but these few knew the truth, not even Jake. Ron wore it constantly, even today, here by the stream, with the sun beating down.
It had been nearly a year since they arrived and so much had happened, but so little too. The war was still grinding on, they were still just holding their own. The raid on London a month ago had been terrible, though. Phyllie had phoned Frankie, and they were safe, but so many others weren’t. ‘But it’s war, Phyllie, so what else do you expect?’ Her brother had sounded exasperated. She’d replied, ‘There’s no need to take that tone, not everyone can be a hero, some of us just have to get on with what we have to do.’
There had been a long silence. Finally he’d said, ‘Thank God that is still possible, Phyllie. I’m sorry.’ It transpired that her mother was too busy to talk, and she probably was. She heard the laughter of the children around her. Joe must have said something. She smiled. The village, the seasons and the children were a reminder of normality, of hope.
On the bank Joe, his two sheepdogs at his feet, was now conferring with Andy who had arrived with the cart, talking quietly to Destiny and Doris as he slapped the reins gently on their great flanks. He had drawn up nearer the stream, the cart laden with railway sleepers and sawn trunks of coppiced trees. She stroked Francois who sat beside her. The children, in their grey physical education shorts, were chatting to the Guides and Scouts.
All winter the WI and Guides had been busy sewing dungarees for the school children, to equip them to help Mr Bartlett sow plants and seeds. Today, though, they’d get wet, so shorts were the thing. The dungarees could wait for tomorrow, for not a day went by without some farm chore being scheduled. In fact, there was a farming calendar on the school noticeboard with dates blocked off for ‘essential war work’.
The children’s letters home chatted about their chores, their table tennis, even the two land girls who had arrived, but departed the same day. ‘Surplus to requirements,’ Joe had roared to the official who had strutted up in the wake of their departure. ‘I’ll be letting you know if I need ’em back, you ’ear me. Until then, I have me boy and Old Stan, and the tiddlins, and it be good for them. So be on your way.’
Soon it would be time to hoe between the potatoes with both the Scouts and Guides. This would not be enjoyed as much as the dawn strawberry picking that they would be doing the next day, but would nonetheless be done. At the thought of the jam making, Phyllie stared down at her plimsolls, the anxiety that was constantly gnawing at her rising to the surface. A twenty-pound loss couldn’t be hidden for ever but Miss F was still trying to find a solution.
‘Miss, miss, look at this.’
Phyllie looked up and saw Sylvia holding a buttercup under Dan’s chin, and then Jake’s. ‘They like butter, miss. Miss, d’you know what’s been happening at the pond yet? We’ve all tried to find out and them Bartletts won’t say.’
Phyllie shook her head. ‘No, I don’t. Mr Joe said that nothing good comes to nosy parkers and to pull my trunk in and wait. So wait we’ll have to. It looks like some stakes have been driven from the bank into the middle, doesn’t it, with a walkway on top. I saw some Scouts helping, but they didn’t know what it was, or said they didn’t. Perhaps it’s something for the ducks? You know how fond Joe is of them.’ She had drummed up the courage to ask Andy, and he had also told her to mind her own business. So she had.
On the bank of the stream Joe was clapping his son on his back before turning to his helpers. ‘Less mucking about, more doing, you sorry-looking lot. What we’re about is fencing a channel for ’em sheep to funnel down into the water, and we’re making a temporary dam, an’ all. We need the bigger lads for that.’ He thumbed towards the older Scouts, who had congregated by the cart, and included Peter, Miss Deacon’s younger nephew, who had evacuated from the Midlands a month before. ‘You tiddlins might well be needed to give ’em a shove.’
Work began, the logs being offloaded from the cart, in the shafts of which the horses stood, tossing their heads as flies pestered. The Scouts then dragged the logs to the bank while the children pushed at the other end, sliding them down the slope into the stream. The water was only a foot deep now but soon it would stack up.
‘There’ll be seepage,’ Andy called, ‘but don’t worry, the sheep only need to be run through to get the worst of the grease and debris from the fleece. The shearers arrive any day now.’
Phyllie moved further back, Francois following. They watched Dan and Jake being directed by two Scouts who chanted as they pulled a log towards the stream: ‘Push, boys, push.’ The Scouts went backwards, as Jake and Dan shoved. All were barefoot, the plimsolls were piled up together, hopefully tied by the laces into pairs, or it would be bedlam when it came to which belonged to whom.
The log was in the water now, where it floated, all four boys guiding it to the dam as per Joe’s instructions. Jake was laughing at Dan, their teeth flashing white against their tans. They all looked so well; and now the London evacuees were indistinguishable from the natives, as Sammy had called them in his last letter. She laughed along with Jake, not knowing what was so funny for him, but Sammy was coming on leave, and happiness coursed through her.
Just one more month and he’d finally be here. It might just be for two days, or one day, or a week, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he’d be here, and she’d feel his arms around her and know that she was loved. The boat was coming into Portland. He and Isaac were taking rooms in a guesthouse in the nearby market town, Bestminster, which served Little Mitherton and all the surrounding villages.
Francois tugged on his lead and she stroked his head. ‘You could do with a bath too, you dear old thing,’ she said. It was still the old rope lead, but why not, everything was in short supply and it belonged to the soldier who had saved him, so was precious.
Joe had dotted the orphaned lambs the children had fed in March with red dye, so the children could identify them as they walked past the field on their nature walks. These lambs would be amongst those herded down the channel that was being built by more Scouts, Guides and children, under Andy’s eagle eye.
Phyllie and Andy now spoke, but he remained distant and still Jake had not been invited to help with the horses and had felt crushed when Thomas Healey, just arrived from London, had been taken on. Thomas, though, had told Miss F that there was too much to do, and he needed help or would have to leave, like Tim Morton, who had helped before he came. Phyllie had pleaded with Joe to let Jake back. Joe had shaken his head, and said that the horses were Andy’s province and therefore it was his decision. Jake had forbidden her to ask Andy. ‘I don’t want any favours,’ he had insisted.
The sheep were bleating in the field behind and around her, and Andy called across from the bank, standing firm in his gumboots, ‘Miss Saunders, move that dog now. I’ll be working mine in a moment to get the sheep into the river, or had you forgotten?’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ she replied. ‘I was waiting for your signal as your father arranged. You will notice that Francois hasn’t moved a muscle. Jake has been training him, and we trust Francois implicitly.’ She led Francois across to the stone-built shelter at the entrance to the field, shut the door behind him, and locked it with the huge rusty key. ‘Don’t you dare make a fuss,’ she breathed. It had been Joe’s idea to bring him, to show Andy how trustworthy both Jake and Francois were. He yelped. ‘Quiet, all this is for Jake. So be quiet,’ she said. He stopped.
She walked back to the sheep r
un, listening for the dog’s bark over the bleating of the sheep, which were being rounded up by the sheepdogs. Nothing. Thank heavens. She gave Jake a thumbs-up. The Scouts, with a couple of Guides, were standing on the dam, holding long paddles. The milling sheep, who had been herded to the mouth of the channel, were being harassed by the dogs – nipped, yelped at, pushed. The bleating grew louder as Joe called, ‘Let ’em through.’
Old Stan moved the wicker hurdle from the entrance to the channel and the sheep and lambs seemed to pour into it, two by two. A large old girl rushed and leapt, trying to clear the stream, but she was doomed to fail, and splashed down. Joe and two of the Scouts stood in the river, shoving them under, and the Scouts and Guides on the damn did the same with the paddles. It was mayhem, a riot of splashing and cursing, not to mention bleating. And still no barks from Francois.
Andy had his back to her, standing at the head of the channel as his dogs worked. He grabbed the sheep and shoved them along, shouting, ‘Go on, down, down.’ Some Scouts leaned over the fencing and pulled them onwards too. One sheep milling near the entrance broke free of the dogs, heading back into the meadow. Andy whistled, and a sheepdog gathered it up. He shouted across to Phyllie, ‘That’s a well-trained dog for you.’
‘Francois is silent, haven’t you noticed?’ she countered.
Andy shrugged and grabbed another sheep. Joe called, pointing, ‘It’s that old white-faced cardy trying for a break, Andy lad, get the old devil in, she’ll tear off if she can.’
The sheep were scrambling out on the far side, shaking the water from their fleeces, and Phyllie could have sworn that they glared defiance before scampering off, still shaking.
They were there for three hours in total, because once the sheep had been washed, the dam had to be dismantled, and the logs heaved up onto the cart. Each time it seemed the Scouts and Guides took an inordinate time checking one another’s hands for splinters, and whispering sweet nothings. Destiny and Doris shifted from leg to leg, and all the time Jake sneaked glances. Phyllie knew he longed to slide off and run his hands along their flanks. She also knew that nothing on earth would make him do so.
