Hester should have been his. None of the Ledburton girls he’d known before the war or the crimped and painted ones that hung round the barracks where he was stationed were a patch on her. But it had been Reuben she was watching for on Christmas night, when Dave had danced every dance with her. She was shy with him but it was not the artificial coquettishness he so often encountered, which, although it roused him, left him unmoved. Hester amazed him. As he had guided her protectively round the crowded floor of the hostel’s recreation room the other dancers had dissolved until it was just the two of them, alone in the warm, smoky, darkened space. And then Reuben, determined to keep his promise to Hester, had at last arrived, almost exhausted by hours of trudging through the snow. And Hester had cried out, left Dave and run into Reuben’s arms. His mother had warned him. She had observed her son’s reaction to Hester and told him that the girl was already spoken for.
Dave did not, for one moment, blame Hester for his disappointment. She had neither encouraged nor misled him. Yet this did nothing to diminish his feelings for her or his conviction that, if there was any sense in anything, Hester was destined to be his.
Day was breaking and the farmyard rooster was crowing by the time Dave slept. Next day he travelled back to his barracks although his leave had another twenty-four hours to run.
Winnie had watched, as unobtrusively as she could, to see whether any mail arrived for Marion from Sergeant Kinski. It was over a month now since she had slipped the snapshot of her friend into an envelope and posted it to the US army address he had printed on the letter he had sent to Marion, but when week succeeded week and no response arrived, Winnie had assumed that the sergeant had found some other girl to fancy.
In fact, Marvin Kinski, together with most of the young men who were being mustered for an assault on the beaches of northern France, sensed the approach of the moment when they would be ordered to board the thousands of landing craft that were concealed along England’s south coast, be transported across the pitching waters of the English Channel and delivered into whatever sort of hell the German army was preparing for their arrival.
The cloak of secrecy that shrouded every aspect of the preparations for the Allies’ coming assault on France fooled no one. Exactly where the troops would be landed and precisely when remained unknown, but the more intelligent and observant of them were aware that the midsummer solstice was not many weeks away. The nights were short, the sea, at almost midsummer, should be relatively smooth and warm, so they were, even if only subconsciously, aware of what was about to happen to them, of what was going to be asked of them and that many of them would not survive it. So they drank as much as they were able to and went as far as they could with as many girls as possible. They wrote home, thanked their mums for the tin of cookies or the batch of blueberry muffins, sent their best to their brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, told their girls how much they loved them and promised to write again soon.
Chapter Five
The morning of June 6th 1944 began, on both the Bayliss farms, much as any other. The weather was quiet after several stormy days and the dairy herd had already been turned out into one of the water meadows and was hungrily pulling at the succulent grass. Mabel was hosing out the milking stalls and Winnie and Marion were in the yard, shovelling dung onto a cart.
As usual, the old wireless set, donated by Margery Brewster and plugged into a power point just inside the door to the milking shed, was broadcasting a programme of popular music transmitted by the BBC to boost morale amongst war workers. The same upbeat tunes and soulful ballads echoed across munitions factory floors, along aircraft assembly lines, through the laundries of hospitals, in the kitchens of schools and around government offices up and down the nation. Anywhere and everywhere where workers were working.
At Higher Post Stone Farm, Winnie and Marion, breathless as they were from exertion, joined in lustily with the choruses while Ferdie Vallance, an accomplished whistler, extemporised, his efforts encouraged and appreciated by Mabel.
‘Lovely whistler you are, Ferdie,’ she told him, looping up the hose and hanging it on its hook.
‘An’ that’s not all I’m good for, is it, my lover!’ They leered at each other, sharing their secret.
Roger Bayliss, like many civilians at that time, had been keeping an ear open for news. He had brought his own wireless set from the farmhouse and, as he worked his way through a stack of paperwork, the same music that was blaring across the yard was faintly audible in his office. Rose, too, in the kitchen at Lower Post Stone Farm, carefully selecting ten large potatoes which she would later bake in the oven for the girls’ dinner, heard the familiar tunes and sang snatches of the words. Then, as the programme was interrupted, she froze.
‘This is the BBC Home Service,’ a familiar voice announced. ‘Here is a special bulletin read by John Snagge.’
In his office, Roger Bayliss reached for the volume control on his receiver.
Ferdie Vallance, passing the barn door, caught the words and shouted to Mabel. ‘Quick, Mabel!’ he called. ‘There’s a special bulletin comin’ through!’ Marion and Winnie heard him and hurried across the yard, and Gwennan came rapidly out of the poultry shed, where she had been sorting eggs, and joined them as they clustered round the wireless. The reception was poor, distorting the words as the girls and Ferdie tried to catch them.
‘D-Day has come…’ the broadcaster’s voice continued. ‘Early this morning the Allies began the assault on the north-western face of Hitler’s European fortress.’ It was an announcement that no one who heard it would ever forget, wherever or whoever they were. Old, young, rich or poor, sick and injured or safe and well, the words imprinted themselves on the minds and in the hearts of everyone. At Lower Post Stone Farm, Rose ran out of the kitchen shouting.
‘Alice! Come quick!’ she yelled. ‘It’s D-Day! The man says D-Day has come!’ Hester, who had been upstairs sweeping bedrooms, ran down the steep stairs, colliding with Alice as she came quickly through from her sitting room. The three women burst into the kitchen and stood, motionless, round the wireless set, open-mouthed, as John Snagge’s words reached them, his level delivery of the facts helping them to absorb and understand the news that everyone had been waiting for.
‘Knew it!’ At Higher Post Stone Farm, Marion’s sharp Northern voice rang triumphantly round the farmyard. ‘Didn’t I say?’ she yelled, ‘I knew it! I did!’
‘How could you ’ave knowed that?’ Jack growled, his scorn palpable.
‘’Cos where’s all the fellas bin these last few days then, eh? Gone off, ready for the invasion, that’s where! There’s not a uniform in sight no more!’ She moved close to the aging man, her flushed face inches from his sulky, weathered one, and she tapped the side of her nose with a grimy forefinger. ‘Some of us ’as put two and two together, Mr Jack!’
‘And made five, most like!’ The altercation would have continued if Gwennan, who was trying to concentrate on the bulletin, picking up on the time of the invasion, where it had taken place, which forces were involved and who their commanders were, hadn’t told them to shut up.
‘Montgomery!’ she shouted triumphantly, ‘Good old Monty! And Eisenhower! Listen will you… The man says as King George is going to be on the wireless tonight, talking to the nation… And they’ve dropped paratroopers! Normandy, they landed! Well I never,’ she breathed, suddenly unable to take in any more information. ‘Well I never! D-Day! At last!’
In the kitchen at Lower Post Stone Farm, Alice saw Hester’s face blanch. She clutched at the edge of the table and breathed the name of her husband, repeating it, over and over. As her knees began to buckle, Alice took her by her elbows and set her down on a chair.
‘Head between your knees, Hester, there’s a good girl, and Rose…put the kettle on, will you?’ But Rose, too, was ashen faced.
‘My Dave,’ she said, looking accusingly at Alice, as though she was in some way to blame. ‘On’y las’ week he said as the balloon was gonna go
up! Any minute, he said. “I can’t say no more’n that, Ma, but take it from me, any day now, the balloon…”’ Rose’s throat closed on the words but she did as Alice had asked and filled the kettle, then stood it on the hob.
That evening Roger Bayliss arrived at the lower farm with two bottles of a good Burgundy. He was possibly a little disappointed by the girls’ lack of appreciation of the gesture. They sipped and smiled politely enough but, as Alice told him when they carried their own glasses through to her sitting room, ‘They would probably have preferred beer! But it’s the thought that counts and it was a very kind one. Thank you, Roger – on their behalf.’ They sat in the half-light and toasted the day’s good news. ‘How d’you think it’s going?’ she asked him, meaning the invasion.
‘Hard to say,’ Roger answered, and then paused. ‘It can’t have been a complete disaster. Certainly not another Dunkirk. We’d know by now if it had been. But my guess is that they won’t tell us much until a few goals are achieved. Caen will be the first major objective. Until we secure Caen there’s the risk that we could be outflanked and if we can’t maintain dependable supply lines across the Channel and well into Normandy, our people are going to be in trouble.’ He sipped thoughtfully and added, ‘No casualty figures yet, of course. But it must have been carnage on those beaches.’
‘Hester is already asking how soon she can expect to hear whether Reuben is all right,’ Alice said. ‘And Rose is worried sick about her Dave.’ Roger drained his glass and got to his feet.
‘Thought I’d drive up to the forest,’ he said. ‘Christopher probably doesn’t know about the invasion.’
‘D’you think he wants to know? I mean, he is a pacifist.’ Roger thought about this for a moment.
‘I believe he’s lost too many good friends in this scrap not to want to celebrate the fact that the end of it is in sight at last.’ He hesitated, and then invited Alice to go with him. She declined, explaining that she had promised to listen, with the girls, to the King’s broadcast and that she felt she should be on hand just in case any bad news came through for anyone. Roger nodded.
‘I’ll be on my way, then,’ he said.
The track up through the lower slopes of his woodland was too step and uneven for the suspension of his Riley, so Roger drove the farm truck along the valley floor and then turned left, up into the trees, noticing as he climbed that the plantations of spruces which interspersed stands of beech, oak, ash and bat-willow, were already benefiting from Christopher’s attention over the eight months since he had assumed responsibility for them. Dead wood was piled in organised heaps and recently planted saplings stood, securely staked, in the open spaces where trees had been felled during late summer and early autumn.
If Roger had questioned what it was that had motivated this visit to Christopher, he would have found it difficult to find an answer. While it was true that he felt a natural desire to communicate the news to his son, he was also experiencing, although he was only half aware of it, a growing concern that, even now, almost a year since the boy’s RAF career had ended in a humiliating discharge, he still chose to live in total isolation and in primitive conditions only four miles from the comparatively luxurious farmhouse in which he had been born and comfortably – and presumably happily – raised.
Roger was, by his own standards, an honourable man. He had never, as far as he knew, been dishonest or cruel. He had adopted the middle-class principles laid down for him by his parents and when there were difficulties he had followed their advice and, as much as was possible, survived them. Like many of his generation, he was disinclined to analyse his feelings. To do so was, he believed, a sign of introspection and self-indulgence. Instead, he repressed his anxieties by applying his mind to the task in hand, whatever that might be at the time of the difficulty. The second occasion on which he had employed this method it had helped him through the loss of his wife. He had buried himself in work in much the same way as he had buried her in Ledburton churchyard. Believing that Christopher, who at that time had been hardly more than a child, was too young to dwell on such things as illness and death, he had discouraged the little boy from talking about his mother.
‘There’s nothing more to be said, old chap,’ he gently told the solemn child, who, only hours before, had watched earth being thrown into his mother’s grave and heard it thud onto the lid of her coffin.
The sound of the labouring engine had reached Christopher through the quiet evening air several minutes before the truck heaved into sight. He saw that the driver was not, as he at first assumed, Jack or Fred, delivering food and provisions prepared and cooked by Eileen, his father’s housekeeper. Instead he recognised his father. Watching him climb down from the cab, he sauntered forward to greet him.
‘Pa!’ he said. ‘How are you?’ When they had exchanged greetings Christopher suggested that as it was such a pleasant evening they might sit outside. ‘Whiskey and a splash?’ he offered, and when his father accepted, went into the cottage to prepare the drinks.
Roger sat down on a rustic seat that he guessed his son had knocked together, using odd lengths of timber from the quantities of it that lay, neatly stacked, around the cottage and its outbuildings. Through an open window he could hear Christopher moving about inside the small, simple structure, setting heavy glass tumblers on bare wood, opening a cupboard, closing it.
The air was still. A blackbird, from the cottage roof, broke the silence and somewhere, further into the trees, a thrush was under-singing. A robin landed boldly almost at Roger’s feet and stared hard at him, the head slightly turned, the eye, unblinking, dark and imperious. It retreated in a flutter of indignation when Christopher emerged from the cottage and, after putting one tumbler into his father’s hand, carried the other to a nearby tree stump where he sat, raised his glass and said, ‘Cheers, Pa.’ Roger reciprocated, they sipped and the silence spooled out.
‘It’s hard to believe it on an evening as peaceful as this one,’ Roger said, and then hesitated, ‘but this morning the Allies landed in northern France. I thought you probably didn’t know about it and it occurred to me that you might like to. I mean, I’m aware of how you feel about it all but at least now the end is in sight, which, I imagine, pleases you as much as everyone else, whatever their viewpoint. Except for our enemies, of course…’
‘Yes,’ Christopher said quietly, ‘except for them.’ There was a pause. Somewhere below them, down the steep slope of the hillside, a pheasant’s alarm call shattered the silence.
Roger experienced a surge of something close to anger at his son’s detached, even cool reaction to the certainty that hundreds, if not thousands, of men had died that day, and as darkness fell, were continuing to die in a chaos of ear-splitting noise and flying metal, tossed, like gory rag dolls, by exploding shells and bombs. All of this solidified in Roger’s mind until he saw it in monochrome, a series of still photographs, like the newspaper images of the First World War, of which, as a schoolboy, he had been so significantly aware.
Christopher, reading his father’s reaction, at once understood how offensive his response had been and apologised for it.
‘I don’t mean I’m not glad it’s going to be over soon. And I know the invasion had to happen. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful or unconcerned.’ He scanned his father’s face. ‘I know my attitude offends you, Pa. And I’m sorry. Believe me.’
Roger swallowed his drink and nodded. Christopher asked for details of the invasion and this seemed to make the conversation easier for Roger. He cleared his throat and gave his son a concise account of the news of the landings. He followed this with his own assessment of the probable strategies of the Allied commanders and of what they would be hoping to achieve over the next few days.
‘Of course the losses on the beaches must have been horrendous but if things hadn’t gone reasonably to plan I imagine we would have been told by now and the news bulletin tonight was mostly positive.’ He had finished his drink, refused a second and was getting to his f
eet. ‘Anyway…just thought you should know, old chap.’
‘Stay and have some grub?’ Christopher offered. ‘I could rustle up something, if you…?’
But his father declined politely and was moving towards the truck.
When he reached it he pulled open its door and, almost as though the vehicle was a lifeline he could use to haul himself back to the safety of his own thoughts and emotions, climbed inside. Then, with one hand on the gear lever and the fingers of the other reaching for the key he had left in the ignition, he turned to his son.
‘You’re doing a bloody good job up here, Chris,’ he said. ‘Your hard work is really paying off.’ Christopher was warmed by the rare compliment. ‘I could probably spare Jack for, say, one day a fortnight, to give you a hand, if that would suit you?’ Christopher welcomed the prospect of Jack’s labour. He had lit a cigarette and stood with it burning between his fingers while his father hesitated.
‘Things are not going to be the same, you know, on the land, I mean, when this caper’s over.’ Roger spoke quietly. ‘Changes are always inevitable, of course. More mechanisation and so on… But wars make things happen fast and before we have time to consider them.’ He was thinking of the hundreds of acres which, since 1939, in order to meet the demand for home-grown food, had been put under the plough at the expense of heathland, drained at the expense of wetlands or cleared at the expense of woodland. Christopher’s smile, as he flicked ash from his cigarette, was, Roger thought, slightly patronising.
‘Well, there’s always change, Pa, isn’t there?’
‘Of course. But rarely before has it been so sudden or so drastic or so irreversible as we have experienced over the last few years. It’s an ongoing process, of course. Machines making horses and men redundant and so on. But believe me, Chris, we’ve seen nothing yet!’
‘Not all bad, though? Workers will benefit, surely? Mechanisation will reduce the amount of back-breaking labour, won’t it?’
The Girl at the Farmhouse Gate Page 10
