They assured him they were and he listened while they described to him what had happened. He breathed the words ‘poor sod’ when they told him of the pilot’s fate. Then, as the girls stared at him, astonished by his changed appearance, he seemed suddenly to become aware of their attention.
‘Well, if everything’s OK here,’ he smiled self-consciously, ‘I’ll say goodnight.’ He turned and disappeared into the darkened cross-passage, leaving the girls staring at the empty doorway.
Alice followed him out and went with him to the front door.
‘How did you get here?’ she asked, and he explained that an old farm truck was kept, at his father’s insistence, at the woodsman’s cottage ‘for emergencies’.
‘It was very thoughtful of you,’ Alice said, and when he hesitated at the doorway she guessed he wanted news of Georgina Webster.
Georgina was one of the initial intake of eight girls who had arrived at Lower Post Stone Farm two days after Alice had begun work there. Unlike most land girls, who came mainly from working class areas and had left school after receiving only a basic education, Georgina, or Georgie, as the girls came to call her, was considered ‘privileged’. Her father farmed extensively in West Somerset, where the family lived comfortably in a handsome manor house. They were staunch pacifists who, when war was declared, wanted no part in it. But by 1943, when their only son, Lionel, reached the age of eighteen, he would, unless he declared himself a Conscientious Objector, have been conscripted into one of the armed services had not Georgina, his senior by twelve months, volunteered to enlist, allowing Lionel to remain on the family farm. Of the services available to Georgina, the Land Army, which was never involved in combat, was her obvious choice.
Her first weeks at Lower Post Stone had exposed Georgina to open hostility from the other girls when they discovered that she was what they called a ‘conchie’. The person with whom she had most in common was the warden, whose middle-class background matched her own. She and Alice spoke with similar accents and, until the girls’ reaction made them aware of it, used words and phrases which set them apart. The girls had resented it when Roger Bayliss, in view of Georgina’s education, her maturity and her natural air of authority, had appointed her as forewoman of the unruly gaggle of young women which had been assigned to him and they noticed, when their boss’s son came home on leave, that he ignored them and took a shine to Georgina. Not that they cared. ‘Master Christopher’, as the farmhands called him, was posh, like she was. And stuck up.
The relationship between Christopher and Georgina started badly. His swaggering, flirtatious approach irritated her and he was dismissive, even spitefully disapproving, of her pacifism. Yet it was she who first picked up on the warning signs of the breakdown which was about to shatter his nerves and end his flying career. Too many missions, insufficient leave, his squadron decimated by the enemy, friends blown out of the sky before his eyes or burnt beyond recognition in runway pile-ups all took their toll on him, eventually pushing him to the edge of sanity and over it. It had been Georgina, not his father, who had visited him in the psychiatric ward.
While Christopher’s experience, and various other tragic events that had touched her during her months on the farm, had forced Georgina to question and then reject pacifism, Christopher, as he slowly recovered, had adopted it. Their paths crossed and they moved in opposing directions. When she told him of her changed convictions and that she was going to join the Air Transport Auxiliary, a non-combatative unit of the RAF, he was devastated. Despite this, Alice believed the pair of them still cared for one another and found herself bridging the gap between them.
As he stood hesitating in the doorway, his head, as his father’s had been earlier that day, inclined to one side to avoid contact with the low lintel, Alice told Christopher that Georgina had visited the farmhouse a few weeks previously while on a brief leave from the ATA.
‘They’re working her terribly hard but I think she’s enjoying it.’ Georgina had been taught to fly by an uncle whom she always referred to as ‘the de Havilland uncle’ because of his professional connection with that company, and she had achieved her pilot’s licence on the day she became old enough. ‘She flies all sorts of aircraft, you know, ferrying them between the airfields and the repair workshops.’ Alice paused, uncertain how much Christopher wanted to know about Georgina’s involvement in a war of which he now disapproved as strongly as she once had. He stood for a moment without speaking. Then he told Alice that he was very out of touch with what was going on in the world.
‘I don’t get any news where I am,’ he said, and then paused. ‘But I imagine it won’t be long before the Allies invade France?’
‘It’s what everyone expects,’ Alice answered. ‘When and where are closely guarded secrets, of course.’ After a moment they smiled at each other and shook hands.
‘’Night, Mrs Todd,’ he said. ‘And if you see Georgie, would you give her my…’ He hesitated.
‘Your love?’
‘Well…yes.’
‘Of course I will,’ Alice said.
On the morning a letter arrived from Alice’s solicitors informing her of the date of her divorce proceedings in London, two others were delivered to the farmhouse. One was Reuben’s regular weekly communication with Hester, his bride of six weeks in which the pair had spent only occasional nights together whenever he managed a few hours of leave.
The third letter, which was addressed to Miss M Grice, surprised Alice, who could not remember Marion ever having received any mail during the twelve months since she had arrived at the hostel.
Alice had propped the two letters on the dresser and when Hester burst into the kitchen the moment she arrived back from her work, which that day had involved the clearing of a ditch recently blocked by a fallen willow, she reached for her letter, muddy, smiling and blushing with pleasure at the sight of Reuben’s handwriting.
‘There’s a letter there for Marion, Hester,’ Alice called to her. ‘Take it up to her, would you?’ But as Hester took the letter, Gwennan, who always made other people’s business her own, snatched it from her hand and examined it closely, her hard features sharpened by curiosity and surprise.
‘It’s got a US army stamp on it… Bet it’s from the bloke as was here Christmas Day when we was snowed in and all those GIs from the camp turned up! You remember him, Mrs Todd? A sergeant, he was. Short and ugly, with a five o’clock shadow. Made a right fool of himself over Marion, he did!’ Alice did remember the stocky, vivacious GI sergeant and was irritated, not for the first time, by the Welsh girl’s spiteful view of her fellows. She sighed as Gwennan’s footsteps thudded up the bare boards of the stairs.
‘Letter for Miss Grice!’ Gwennan announced, putting her head round the door of the low-ceilinged bedroom which Marion and Winnie shared. ‘Reckon it’s from that Kinski fellow. Marvin, was it?’ She was certain she caught the suggestion of a softening of Marion’s sharp features.
‘Mind your own business, Taff,’ Winnie snapped protectively, ‘and give Marion her letter!’ Gwennan smirked, skimmed the letter across the room in the general direction of Marion and withdrew.
‘What’s he writing to me for?’ Marion murmured, trying, without success, to appear indifferent to the unexpected attention from a man who, despite falling short of her usual standards, being dark but neither tall nor handsome, had made an undeniable impression on her. It was almost two months since Christmas Day, when Marvin Kinski had breezed into her life and spent an evening jitterbugging with her. He had turned up at the farm a week later in a borrowed staff car, whisked her off for tea and cakes in Exeter, told her he was being posted to a training base in Hampshire, kissed her hand at the farmhouse gate – as he had recently seen Clark Gable kiss Vivienne Leigh’s – asked permission to write to her and driven off, beeping the staff car’s horn as he accelerated, slithering dangerously down the muddy lane.
‘Well, you told him he could write to you!’ Winnie studied her friend’s deliberately
blank expression.
‘I never!’ Marion said, avoiding Winnie’s eyes.
‘You did so! I ’eard you! Well, go on then! Open it! Read it!’
The words were on a single sheet of paper. With it was a photograph of Marvin in his uniform. He was leaning, nonchalantly, against a Sherman tank. His cap was at a rakish angle and the five o’clock shadow was in evidence. Winnie studied the snapshot while Marion read and then re-read the letter. Then she folded it and slid it back into its envelope.
‘Well?’ Winnie enquired expectantly, and when Marion took her time over lighting a Woodbine, added, ‘Oh, come on, Marion! What does ’e say?’
‘Just that ’e wants me to write to ’im and send ’im me photo.’ She glanced at Winnie’s smile. ‘I don’t know what you’re grinning at, Win.’
‘Well…’cos it’s nice, isn’t it, ’im wanting your picture and everything.’
‘No, it’s not! And anyroad, I haven’t got a picture!’
‘Yes you have! You could send one of those snaps we took last summer! You remember? That Sunday when it was ever so hot and we all went for a dip in the river!’ Winnie searched her friend’s face. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘Are you daft?’ Marion snapped. ‘Have you forgot about our plan?’
Their plan, which they had been forced to divulge to Alice Todd at the time of an incident that had taken place some ten months previously, when Winnie, ostensibly as the result of an abdominal strain caused by lifting bags of swedes, had been hospitalised. Rumour had it that Winnie had miscarried and rumour, on that occasion, had been right. Alice herself had been instrumental in giving Winnie a second chance by hushing up the affair, which otherwise would have resulted in the girl’s dismissal from the Land Army.
Most of the land girls at Lower Post Stone Farm suspected that both Marion and Winnie were receiving rather more than gifts of make-up, chocolates and silk stockings from the American servicemen they picked up in pubs and at local hops, but only Alice knew that the two girls were doggedly saving their money in order, when the war was over, to purchase the lease of a public house of their own.
Their deprived backgrounds, poor educations and less than perfect looks could have robbed Marion and Winnie of self-assurance and resulted in a passive acceptance of the prospect of a future spent in unrewarding labour or marriages dominated by the poverty that had dogged the lives of their parents. But, lurking in both of these girls, was a spark of ambition, a resistance to what might have been seen as their inevitable fate. Their curtailed education had meant that they were not considered bright enough to qualify for the WRENS or the WRAF, so they had opted for the Land Army because, unlike employment in a munitions factory, it offered an escape from the grimy squalor of the back streets of Leeds in which, until war was declared, they had spent their lives.
They had supported each other through the difficult period of adjustment to the hard work and harsh conditions of their new and alien environment and had quickly established contact with the large, floating population of servicemen who were, at that stage of the war, being trained in southern England for the Allies’ invasion of northern France.
When Marion showed Alice Todd the National Savings account she and Winnie had opened together, it had been obvious to the warden that the pounds, shillings and pence it represented amounted to far more than the girls could possibly have accumulated from the meagre wages Roger Bayliss received each week from the Ministry of Agriculture on their behalf. Marion had confessed to the warden that she and Winnie were in the habit of ‘selling on’ to other land girls the ‘presents’ they received from the GIs in return for various, undefined favours.
There were some, Rose and Gwennan among them, who suspected the worst where Marion and Winnie were concerned, but Alice, rather than seeing the two girls sacked and probably forced into an even more precarious situation, had, after Winnie’s ‘miscarriage’, procured contraceptives for them and, from the girls themselves, promises of more discreet behaviour. Since then their savings had continued to build and their financial plans, barring mishap, were on course.
‘Sometimes you are really daft, Win,’ Marion continued, irritably screwing her cigarette stub into a saucer on a dressing table littered with bottles of nail varnish, jars of foundation cream and boxes of face powder. ‘If I gives Marvin the old come-on, things could get…well…you know…’ Winnie was staring at her, her eyes wide, scanning Marion’s sharp features, which, bereft of make-up, were not at their best.
‘You fancy him though, don’t you?’ she whispered, her eyes widening. ‘Jeez, Marion, you do! You fancy the little sergeant!’
‘You still haven’t got it, have you, Win? If I did happen to fancy him and more to the point, if he fancies me…’
‘Well?’
‘Well…where does that leave our plan?’ She watched Winnie’s face. ‘Penny dropped, ’as it? Got it now, ’ave you? You don’t ’ave to worry, though, Win. I won’t let you down. Don’t look at me like that! I won’t! Honest! I want us to ’ave a pub of our own as much as you do.’ To demonstrate her intentions she crumpled the envelope and the letter it contained and tossed them into the empty grate of the small fireplace.
‘But if you like him, Marion…’
Annie’s voice reached them from the corridor outside their room. ‘Bathroom’s free, you two!’ Marion was on her feet, reaching for her towel and dressing gown.
‘Quick, Win!’ she said, moving towards the door. ‘Or that sodding Taff’ll beat us to it and you know how long she takes! Plus she’ll nick all the ’ot water!’
‘But if you really like him…?’
‘The pub wins, love! Hands down! C’mon, girl! Get your skates on!’ Marion left their room and catching sight of the Welsh girl making for the steamy bathroom, yelled. ‘No you don’t, Taff! It’s me and Win next!’
From their bedroom Winnie heard the precious hot water running into the tub.
Sergeant Kinski was a complication neither of them had expected or sought. The men they met seldom had ambitions for more than a bit of fun. Their interest lay in discovering how far these two girls would go. What they were ‘up for’. Their suggestive behaviour, the revealing clothes and the heavy make-up they wore delivered signals to which the men responded eagerly enough. Mostly they settled for what was on offer and, if Marion or Winnie resisted their fumbling attempts at seduction, behaved decently. Occasionally there was some unpleasantness. Once they had been followed from the village pub by a couple of drunken tommies. The girls had given them the slip by concealing themselves in a thicket until the men, hurling abuse into the night, gave up their search and reeled away down the lane in the direction of their barracks. Marion had fatally damaged the heel of a pair of almost-new slingbacks and both girls arrived at the farm just as Alice was locking up for the night, mortified by the state of their stockings. Gwennan, on her way to bed, guessed what had happened.
‘Daft, you two are!’ she exclaimed waspishly. ‘Expecting to be treated like ladies when you be’ave like tarts!’
Winnie sat staring at the screwed-up letter. Then she retrieved it from the grate, smoothed it out and read it.
Chapter Two
Lower Post Stone Farm had stood empty for years before being utilised as a Land Army hostel, and during that time had been slowly decaying. Its thatch was mossy. The panes in some of its windows were cracked. Their frames and even the solid oak doors at the front and rear of the building were darkened by mould. The wooden supports of the front porch had warped under the weight of its roof and the nests of generations of swallows and house martins clustered where its exposed slates met the mildewed, pink-washed walls. Smoothed cobbles on the path that ran from the porch to the gate of the rank garden had been bright with cushions of green moss when the land girls had arrived. Now, after twelve months of heavy use, the moss was worn away. Within the farmhouse the slate floors, the treads of the wooden stairs and the bare boards of the upper floor shone again, buffed by a dozen pair
s of female feet trekking in and out, up and down, to and fro. Verdigris had vanished from the taps in the peeling bathroom and the chimney breasts in the kitchen and the recreation room gave off a steady warmth, which, initially, had done little more than add to a pervading humidity. Now, after a warm summer and an autumn in which the fires had maintained a low but constant heat, the building was at last tolerable.
Warmth rose from the range in the kitchen and lifted the temperature in the bathroom above it before moving on, up into the attic space.
Here, the warden’s son, ten-year-old Edward John Todd, on his weekends and holidays from boarding school, escaped a household dominated by women and played with his Meccano set. He was a methodical boy, storing the dozens of variously shaped pieces of metal in labelled boxes, enlarging his collection on his birthday and at Christmas time when his absent father and his Uncle Richard, unable to think of alternative presents, added to it. If the weekend weather was wet and on Friday and Saturday evenings, when he had eaten his supper, the boy would climb the narrow, upper staircase that led to the attic, light the oil lamp and lose himself in the fascinating construction of bridges and towers, cranes, trucks and challenging industrial machinery, diligently following the printed instructions until his mother’s voice called him to bed.
Through the loose floorboards that separated him from the bathroom, a drift of humid air, flavoured with bath salts and various aromatic shampoos, reached Edward John. The girls’ voices rose and fell as they took it in turns to soak in the bath, wash their hair and rinse out their smalls, cursing when the supply of hot water ran out and they had to suspend their ablutions until the overworked range in the kitchen reheated it. Then a shout of ‘Water’s hot!’ would be followed by a stampede of bare feet along the corridor.
Edward John, engrossed in his construction work, was only half aware of the girls. To him their chatter, laughter, altercations, the occasional bursts of raucous singing and their constant, noisy movement about the building, had become a background to his life at the farm – a peripheral part of the two days each week when he joined his mother there and pursued his own modest agenda. At midday on Saturdays he would climb onto one or other of the carthorses when they were led along the lane to be turned out into the paddock, where they would graze until Monday. He had ambitions to learn to drive the farm tractor, to sit alone on its metal seat and steer it round the yard of the higher farm. He had soon learnt to milk a cow and how to act as midwife to a sow. He had noticed, before anyone else had, when a valuable calf was sick and had been commended by Roger Bayliss for his sharp eye and the responsible action which had saved the animal’s life.
The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate Page 3
