‘I’ll need help when the harvest comes,’ he said. ‘I don’t have enough land girls working. Would you come over in the autumn and lend a hand?’
Kezzie didn’t dare tell Lady Fitzwilliam, but she practically promised him her help. She thought she might enjoy it. There would be company of her own age which she found she missed, and it would make her feel that she was doing something to help the war effort. Lady Fitzwilliam would be quite capable of managing their little school with some help from the older children and mothers. Whether she would agree with that was another matter. She and Kezzie had found that they got on very well together. They had even managed to talk politics without disagreeing too violently.
Then, in an attempt to restore a mood of resistance and determination, the Government launched a new campaign, ‘V for Victory’. It was to become a symbol of hope for those in occupied Europe where the BBC broadcast every night. There were soon posters everywhere with the distinctive V sign surmounting the flag.
One late summer’s evening when it was still warm enough to sit outside, they set out chairs in the garden, just below the terrace which ran the length of the back of the house. It was quiet and pleasant, and yes … peaceful, Kezzie decided. She fetched a cardigan for Lady Fitzwilliam from her bedroom and settled down to read. She could hear in the distance the cries of Lucy and some friends as they played in the long paddock on the other side of the house.
Kezzie was absorbed in her book, so that at first she did not notice the uniformed figure which stepped through the open French windows and walked quietly down the curved steps. Long shadows were grouping among the trees at the end of the path. Lady Fitzwilliam had fallen lightly asleep. Her lips apart, she was snoring gently. Kezzie carefully retrieved the journal which was slipping from her fingers. As she did so she glanced up, and saw the young man dressed in the blue of the RAF walking across the lawn towards them. Something about the way his left leg slurred as he approached caught her attention. She straightened her head and looked more closely.
‘William?’ she said quietly.
CHAPTER 24
William
LADY FITZWILLIAM SCREAMED in delight and scrambled very inelegantly to her feet.
‘Darling boy!’ she exclaimed. ‘You should have warned us. I would have prepared properly for your return.’ She smoothed out the skirt of her frock. ‘I feel so shabby with this ancient woollen dress. It’s several seasons behind in style.’
Kezzie was suddenly very much aware of her own short-sleeved blouse, with its decorated collar and capped sleeves, which was rather worn and very much out of date. William, however, wasn’t concerned with any fashion garment, whether modern or not. He hugged his mother and kissed her several times and then turned his attention on Kezzie. He gazed at her for several moments then finally spoke.
‘Kezzie,’ he said. ‘You look more handsome than ever.’
She smiled up at him. The thin sandy moustache which she remembered was now quite a respectable size and his face had matured into a strong firm profile. In his dark blue uniform, with the peaked hat and braid, he looked very attractive.
She grinned at him. ‘So do you,’ she said.
He gave a whoop of delight, and grabbing her round the waist, he spun her about the lawn.
‘Behave yourself, child,’ his mother laughed and smacked him with her magazine.
‘I’ve got two days,’ he declared, ‘and the use of a jeep and some petrol. We’re not going to waste a second of it.’
Lucy was at first terribly shy with William. He had no brothers or sisters and was unused to children, and he treated her with a formality which she couldn’t understand. To complicate matters there were the two accents. His, a long slow drawl with many expressions which she found strange and incomprehensible. For his part, he was baffled by the speed at which she spoke and the variety of words she used which he had never heard before. He tried hard to be friends but they were awkward in each other’s company. After dinner they played very politely with a jigsaw on the floor of the sitting room for nearly an hour until he suddenly sat up and snapped his fingers.
‘Have you been through the attics yet?’ he asked her.
When Lucy shook her head he pulled her to her feet.
‘Oh, jolly good!’ he cried. ‘That means I can be the first to help you explore. I know! We’ll find the hamper with the clothes for dressing up. Then we can have some super fun tonight.’
Lucy made a face at Kezzie as she followed him obediently out of the room. Kezzie gave her sister a warning look. After some time, when they didn’t reappear, both she and Lady Fitzwilliam went to look for them. They found Lucy and William sitting upstairs surrounded by an enormous variety of exotic clothes, capes and wigs, long dresses, fans and parasols, pirate costumes and cowboy outfits.
Lady Fitzwilliam clapped her hands. ‘I’d forgotten all about these clothes,’ she exclaimed. ‘It is so long since there’ve been young children in this house.’
‘Let’s play charades,’ declared William.
It was a game Lucy had never played before, but she proved to have a great talent for acting. She and William had the most tremendous fun and, working together, managed to win most of the time. Kezzie and Lady Fitzwilliam eventually called a halt to the game, which would have gone on all night.
‘Did you enjoy that?’ Kezzie asked her sister as they prepared for bed.
‘It was jolly good,’ said Lucy.
Kezzie burst out laughing.
‘I still don’t know what he is saying half the time,’ Lucy confided, ‘but now I just say “yes” and nod a lot. He seems to like that.’
The next day they made a picnic and went to the seaside. It was many miles before they reached the flat fen country.
‘Don’t be too excited,’ William warned them as they approached Kings Lynn. ‘There are concrete blocks and barbed wire and anti tank devices all over the beaches, but we might find a place to get on to the sands.’
How beautiful England is, thought Kezzie, as they passed the little villages, the country pubs and steepled churches with weathercocks on top. It seemed such a desecration when they reached the coast and saw the defences against the expected invasion. The ugly rolls of jagged wire, and the danger signs with skull and crossbones painted on. In some areas land mines had been planted to slow down or repel approaching enemy tanks. Kezzie shuddered. Thank God, it hadn’t come to that. Churchill was right. The whole of Britain owed the RAF an unimaginable debt.
They found a place among the dunes to eat their sandwiches, and although they could not bathe they spread a rug on the tussocks of grass and sunbathed for an hour or two. Lucy and Lady Fitzwilliam made sandcastles. Kezzie watched them together as her eyes closed drowsily. Such friends they had become, crossing barriers of age and class with apparent ease. William joined them in their game, constructing a moat and a drawbridge and bossing them both like a spoiled child. Kezzie’s eyes closed as she relaxed into sleep, head propped against some cushions.
It was dusk when they started for home. On the journey back Lucy cuddled in against Lady Fitzwilliam on the rear seat. At one stage Kezzie turned around to say something and then stopped. They were both asleep, their foreheads and cheeks pink where they had caught the sun.
William stretched across and grasped Kezzie’s hand. ‘It was so good of you to come all the way down here and spend some time with Ma,’ he said. ‘You and Lucy have been a tonic. She is much more cheerful than when I saw her last.’
Kezzie smiled at him. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it is your mother who has helped us. When I came at first I could scarcely stand up. She looked after us both.’
‘Tonight we will go to a dance,’ William told Kezzie when they arrived at the house. ‘There’s a forces’ base a few miles east of Nottingham. I know one or two chaps there. I don’t know if I’ll actually get you on the floor, but at least we can listen to the music.’
‘I don’t have anything to wear,’ said Kezzie.
‘No
nsense,’ said Lady Fitzwilliam, who had just awoken. ‘We will find something suitable.’
She searched through her own wardrobe until she came across a blue silk dress patterned with tiny rosebuds.
‘We will have to shorten the skirt,’ she told Kezzie. ‘You have a bath, my dear, and I will see how rusty my sewing skills are.’ She smiled. ‘This length was very daring when I wore it. I was the first young lady in the county to reveal some leg – quite scandalous at the time.’
In fact, when she reached the army base and went into the room where the band was playing Kezzie realised that she needn’t have worried about her dress at all. Many women were there in uniform, or wearing a plain skirt and cardigan. The idea was to relax and forget the war for a short time. She sat at a table and sipped lemonade while William went to the bar for a beer.
Shortly before it ended Kezzie persuaded William onto the floor. He was self-conscious about his leg, but she insisted that he should partner her for the last waltz.
On the way home William spoke to Kezzie quite seriously. ‘It is such a great comfort to me to know that Ma has you with her when I am away,’ he said. ‘Promise me that you’ll stay on a little longer.’
He parked the jeep in front of the house and helped her out. Just as she stepped from the running board he lifted her into his arms and kissed her gently. She waited, quite still, as he put his fingers in her hair and stroked her face. Then he crushed her head tightly against his chest. She knew that they understood each other quite well. He was the brother she’d never had, and she was a sister. He kept her very close to him for many minutes, as if clinging on to some vibrant contact with life, knowing that when dawn came he would have to face death once more.
The next morning they got up early to wave William off on the long drive south to rejoin his fighter squadron. He kissed them all again many times, and shook hands warmly with Samuel, who stood on the bottom step holding his kitbag. His eyes were shining as he turned and waved one last time before switching on the engine and letting out the clutch. The jeep shot off at speed and soon disappeared between the stone pillars.
‘You know,’ said Lady Fitzwilliam to Kezzie. ‘I do believe he is keen to get back to his base and into the air again.’
They waited in front of the house until the sound of the horn and the noise of the engine faded. Lady Fitzwilliam shivered slightly as they turned to go back to the house. She looked at the sky.
‘Sun has gone in,’ she said.
CHAPTER 25
Bad news
THE FIRST CHESTNUTS were falling and the fields were the colour of baked biscuit when the local farmer called round at the house and reminded Kezzie of her promise.
‘Working on a farm!’ said Lady Fitzwilliam when Kezzie told her. She pressed her lips together. ‘I thought you had intentions of becoming a doctor?’
‘I have,’ said Kezzie. ‘And I will,’ she added. ‘But at the moment they need help to bring the harvest in. There are not many people who can drive the tractor and it will only be for a few weeks,’ she reassured Lady Fitzwilliam.
On the first day she began work Kezzie dressed as she had seen the other land-girls do. The farmer’s wife had given her some heavy-duty clothes to wear. Kezzie combed her hair and tucked it right up under a scarf, which she tied in a bandanna style around her head. Then she put on the rough checked shirt, thick brown dungarees, and dark green wellington boots. She went downstairs to the kitchen where Lucy and Lady Fitzwilliam were having breakfast together.
‘Well,’ said Kezzie, turning about to show off her outfit, ‘what do you think?’
There was a silence. Then Lucy giggled and Lady Fitzwilliam breathed deeply, then cleared her throat. ‘It’s not really what one would call … em … pretty? Is it, my dear?’ she enquired politely.
Kezzie laughed out loud. ‘Dungarees aren’t meant to be pretty,’ she said. ‘I think their designer had a more functional use in mind.’
Lady Fitzwilliam grimaced. ‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘I read the other day that the Princess Margaret was wearing a boiler suit. So, one must adapt to the times, I suppose.’
Impulsively Kezzie went over and hugged her. ‘Wish me luck,’ she said. ‘I am so nervous.’
‘Gracious, child, what have you to be nervous about?’
Kezzie shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I might not be able to keep up with the rest of the girls. I could have an accident with the tractor … all sorts of things.’
Lady Fitzwilliam stood up. ‘You’ll manage perfectly well,’ she asserted. ‘Just be careful that you don’t develop … muscles.’
The work was hard and each minute of daylight precious. The girls rose before dawn and were in the fields as the first light of the sun was edging over the horizon. They worked together in a cheerful group of mixed personalities and backgrounds. And they knew how to entertain themselves. There wasn’t a dance or singsong or get-together within a radius of twenty miles that they didn’t hear of and wangle an invitation to. Despite an aching back Kezzie was enjoying herself. She loved being outdoors, driving in the fields and cycling home at night. Often she would stop for a few minutes before putting her bike away to watch the long drawn-out sunsets, the western sky painted in vertical lines of blues and reds.
Kezzie liked the colours of autumn, and the harmony of the land and nature that produced the harvest filtered into her spirit. The screeching, scavenging crows settled in a noisy cloud behind her as her tractor moved down the furrow, the clods tumbling behind as the blades sliced through the dun-coloured earth. Many of the farms had gone back to using horse-drawn ploughs, the grand shires making their stately way up and down the field.
She was sleeping well, and eating better than she’d done for months. There was something satisfying about the sight of the hay stooks and the smell of the apples in the brown wooden barrels. Honeysuckle grew around the barn door and blue and yellow gladioli stood on long green stalks in front of the white-painted farmhouse. And the land girls with their chat and laughter became part of the landscape itself. The farmer’s wife was delighted with their company and her husband declared he’d never had better workers.
The other bonus for Kezzie was the fact that she was paid a wage. It wasn’t very much, but Kezzie felt that at least she could contribute something to her and Lucy’s upkeep. The farmer also gave her potatoes and turnips to bring home. She knew that Lady Fitzwilliam would not accept any of the money she earned. She’d tried tentatively to bring the subject up but it had been dismissed abruptly. ‘My husband left me quite comfortably off. William and I are well provided for, and indeed, Samuel also. So there is no need to discuss the matter further.’
However, her income gave Kezzie some independence. She was able to buy some small things for herself and Lucy. She occasionally went to the clothing exchange in the nearest town. Lady Fitzwilliam had at first been very reluctant to accompany them, but eventually her curiosity proved too strong and she came along. To her astonishment there were several other titled ladies rummaging through the assorted bundles.
‘I consider it my patriotic duty,’ one declared loudly. ‘We are being exhorted to “make do and mend” and that’s what I intend to do.’
‘They say it’s saving our merchant fleet. They are in enough danger transporting essential foods,’ said another.
Later, when Kezzie looked across the church hall, she saw Lady Fitzwilliam arguing with someone over possession of a hat. She finally came towards Kezzie clutching it firmly in one hand.
‘Surely we can fight a war without rationing hats,’ she said.
Kezzie obtained some shoes, a cardigan and an old army blanket from which she intended to make Lucy a winter coat. The weather was becoming severe and Kezzie was glad that they had the foresight to lay up supplies of wood. People were scavenging for coal in old bings, and along the seashore.
Kezzie knew from the newspaper reports that Michael had been in action again. As the Germans were moving so fast through Gree
ce his unit had been sent quickly from Egypt to the southern coast of Crete. They took up a position on the Plain of Messara to defend the island from the expected invasion. Enemy paratroopers were dropped in great numbers and the British were forced to withdraw in confusion. Some were left behind, but Michael was with the detachment who reached Heraklion and were picked up by the Royal Navy. The ships were bombed heavily, and less than half of the battalion returned to Egypt.
We’re having a wonderful holiday, he had written to Kezzie. We try out all the beaches. Unfortunately some other people want the place to themselves. They’re not so keen on our company, and don’t like sharing. So most times one or other of us has to go. This time it was us …
Kezzie kept the letter in the pocket of her shirt and took it out to read from time to time. He’d been in terrible danger and she hadn’t known anything about it. She knew now the bond that she and Lady Fitzwilliam shared and why, every time she raised the subject of returning to Scotland, William’s mother tried to persuade her to stay a little longer.
‘Wait until the New Year,’ she had begged Kezzie, ‘until we are certain that there will be no more air raids, and things are more settled in Clydebank.’
Kezzie knew that they’d become close, and the older woman would miss her and Lucy dreadfully when they finally went home.
Towards the end of the year women between the ages of twenty and forty were called up. Lady Fitzwilliam’s maid Sally went off and joined the WRNS. Kezzie was rising early, and working late, storing the last of the crop for the winter, so that it was Lucy who had to instruct Lady Fitzwilliam in the basic skills of cooking and keeping house. Kezzie marvelled at the development in her sister. She was becoming very competent in many practical things, and did not seem so troubled now by new and strange experiences. One day Samuel managed to shoot a rabbit. He came in and very proudly presented the carcass to Lucy and Lady Fitzwilliam in the kitchen.
Kezzie at War Page 26
