The Land Girls

by Victoria Purman

  She checked her watch again. Fanned herself with the straw hat she’d carried with her on the train. Then sat on her suitcase.

  This wasn’t quite the welcome she’d been imagining. Her proud goodbye at Flinders Street station had buoyed her the whole journey. Her father wasn’t an emotional man, never had been. If he could use three words to get his point across instead of twenty, three it always was. But she could see in his eyes that he was going to miss her, and not just because the Atkins household had lost its cook and cleaner and laundress.

  ‘Look at you in that uniform. You look … well, you look like you’re in the army. Work hard, love,’ he’d said as he’d patted the epaulets on her shoulders and handed her suitcase to her. He’d carried it all the way to the station and right up to the platform. He had never been one for overly generous public displays of affection but this small gesture had touched her heart.

  ‘I will, Dad. I’ll do you proud. And Mum. And Frank.’

  ‘Don’t forget me.’ Jack had slipped his arms around her for a hug.

  ‘How could I ever forget you?’ she’d whispered into his ear as they’d embraced. ‘Be good and look after Dad, won’t you?’ She had felt the familiar ache across her chest. She hoped they hadn’t heard the catch in her voice.

  ‘I will. On both counts. I’m as proud as punch of you, Flor.’

  Flora had let herself feel just a little bit proud of herself too. She’d only been away from home once before, when she’d gone to stay with her aunt—her mother’s older sister—in Traralgon, the year she’d turned eighteen. Flora had nursed a sneaking suspicion that she’d been sent there to find a husband. She’d returned without one.

  ‘Don’t forget the tomatoes,’ she’d called as she’d boarded the train. ‘They’re almost ripe. You’ll have enough for sandwiches and supper for a month. And Mrs Jones likes them just the slightest bit still green. She fries them up with an egg on top for breakfast.’

  ‘Noted.’ Jack had smiled as he waved her goodbye. ‘We’ll look after your tomatoes and everything else in that damn Victory Garden of yours.’

  ‘Goodbye then,’ she’d called, finding a smile and a cheery voice as she stepped up into the carriage. She hurried to a seat two rows down, and claimed it before turning to find her father and her brother on the platform, waving. She slipped a handkerchief out of her skirt pocket and unfurled it, and the three of them waved and smiled until her father and her brother became small on the platform and then disappeared.

  The Atkins family had been five for so long. Then four. Then three when Frank had been shipped out. Now there were two.

  And there was only one of her stewing in the heat at the Mildura train station.

  A fly buzzed at her mouth and she waved it away furiously, which was when she heard the shuffling footsteps on the railway platform.

  An old man with a stooped back and a limp, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a long-sleeved shirt, came towards her. Braces held up his sagging trousers and he was so slow that Flora wondered if he would be able to move at all with the crooked walking stick clutched in his gnarled hand.

  At last. Mr Nettlefold. Flora made a quick assessment. Given his age and infirmity, it was no surprise help was needed on his farm. She felt immediately useful.

  Flora sprang to her feet. The move seemed to take the old gentleman by surprise.

  ‘How do you do, Mr Nettlefold.’ She thrust out a hand at him. ‘I’m Miss Flora Atkins. I’m with the Women’s Land Army and I’m here to work with you on your property.’

  The man stopped and turned a little, then lifted his chin. He seemed not to be able to straighten his neck.

  ‘What’s that?’

  She was used to Jack so she leant in a little closer and spoke louder. ‘I’m here from the Women’s Land Army.’

  ‘Are you now,’ the old man grumbled and tapped his walking stick on the ground as a judge might bang a gavel. ‘We’ve had a few of you out this way already. Younger lasses, mostly.’ He looked her over. ‘All the young blokes have gone, you see. Off fighting. More of our young men have enlisted than anywhere. Proud local boys, they are. My own grandson, too.’

  ‘You have much to be proud of,’ she shouted. ‘I appreciate their duty and service. I have a brother in the AIF. That’s why I’m here. To do the work of the men who’ve gone.’

  ‘You? Help?’

  ‘Why, yes.’

  He huffed. ‘I don’t need help from girls like you. The ones who’ve come? They couldn’t do the work. It’s all over town. They didn’t last more than a couple of weeks. All went back to the city crying to their mothers, so I heard.’

  Flora swallowed her confusion and tamped down the flare of anger. She was thirsty and hungry and sweltering, which didn’t help. ‘But Mr Nettlefold, you asked for some help. From the Manpower Directorate. Here I am.’

  ‘Who?’ The old man cupped his hand around his left ear and leant in closer to her. ‘I’m Henwood. George Henwood.’

  A horn tooted, three long sounds. Flora looked across the tracks in the direction of the commotion. A vehicle emerged out of a cloud of dust.

  Mr Henwood followed her gaze and slowly lifted an arthritic finger.

  ‘That’s the Nettlefolds’ Dodge. Don’t trust it myself.’

  The horn beeped again.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Henwood,’ Flora said as she lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. ‘I believe that’s for me.’ She left Mr Henwood ruminating in her wake, lifted her suitcase and took the stairs at the end of the platform to cross the tracks. The Dodge’s engine was still chugging and Flora jogged towards it, no easy feat with the weighty suitcase banging against her calf. The vehicle might have been black when it rolled out of the showroom but now it was covered in a thick layer of dust. There was a tear in its canopy and a long scratch and dent in the passenger door. The front passenger window was wound right down.

  She looked through it.

  ‘Are you Flora Atkins?’ the driver asked.

  ‘Yes. I’m expecting a Mr Charles Nettlefold?’

  The driver was an old woman, judging by the tufts of grey hair that had come loose in wisps from the brim of her straw hat. She was fine-boned and sat propped on a pile of hessian sacks to help her see out the front window.

  ‘Put your case in the back there.’

  Flora did as she was told, then slid into the crinkled and ripped leather passenger seat. The door was heavy and stiff and it took two attempts to close it with a metallic crunch.

  She held out a hand to the driver. ‘Hello, I’m Flora. I’m pleased to meet you.’

  The woman looked her up and down. ‘I’m Mrs Nettlefold. Charles got caught up so he sent me to fetch you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Mrs Nettlefold considered Flora, studying her face, her physique and her shoulders, and even looking down into the foot well of the car to study her shoes.

  ‘You’re not a young lass, are you?’

  Was she to be reminded of this by everyone she met? As if it were a miracle she was still alive. ‘Not as young as some. But I’m a hard worker.’

  ‘Mmm. Thought you’d be younger.’

  The engine continued to chug. A fly buzzed at Flora’s face and she flicked it away with her hand.

  ‘You a spinster then?’ Mrs Nettlefold queried.

  ‘Yes. I’m not a widow.’

  She heard the swallowed sigh of relief from the driver’s seat. City or country, it didn’t matter. Everyone knew someone who was fighting or missing in action or who had been lost. It didn’t need to be someone close. People grieved for the loss of cousins and distant relatives and neighbours’ grandsons or someone from church or the cricket club or the corner shop. Death was so close, always.

  ‘All right then. Let’s go.’

  It was another half-hour journey in the clapped-out Dodge along rutted and dusty roads. On either side were paddocks filled with tightly packed crops swaying in waves as the wind swept through, making shapes like rippl
es on a pond, which then gave way to vines and orange groves as far as the eye could see. At a bend in the road, Mrs Nettlefold turned right, past a white wooden sign poking out of the red earth that said Two Rivers and C.H. + A.M. Nettlefold in black underneath it.

  Mrs Nettlefold wasn’t much of a conversationalist and Flora didn’t mind the silence. It gave her time to think as she took in the view and observed the bluest skies she’d ever seen. She held her hat firmly on her head before leaning out of the open window to feel the wind flow over her. What had been a nervous excitement seven hours before at Flinders Street station now felt rather like two street cats clawing at each other in the pit of her stomach. She was a long way from home in a wholly unfamiliar place. She was to be billeted on her own in the middle of nowhere it seemed, with a suspicious old couple who already believed she wouldn’t be up to the work.

  She hoped she hadn’t made a mistake.

  At a turn in the track, buildings in the distance became clearer. A silver corrugated-iron roof shimmered in the blazing sun and it protected a stone cottage with a centre door at the front and a window on each side, behind which Flora could make out the pattern of lace curtains. The track curved around and behind the house and when Mrs Nettlefold pulled the Dodge to a jumpy stop, Flora leant out of her window and took it all in.

  It was like nothing she’d ever seen.

  A huge peppercorn tree on the other side of the house provided shade to a cow the colour of milk chocolate tethered to a post. A tyre hung from a thick rope, unmoving in the heat. Past it, a henhouse with perhaps a dozen chickens scratching in the red dirt. The rear of the house had been extended with a galvanised lean-to, and a set of wooden steps led to what Flora guessed might have been a pretty lawn in the middle of winter. Beyond the now-red patch of dust, there were shimmering apple-green grapevines as far as the eye could see, the rows dipping down slowly in the distance to a blue streak of river, and red cliffs on the other side shimmered like a mirage.

  Two Rivers was an oasis.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Flora said under her breath. Her shoulders released and her stomach stopped tumbling. She’d never been this far north in Victoria before. The Murray was something she’d learnt about in school but she’d never seen it with her own eyes.

  ‘We have sultanas and currants for drying,’ Mrs Nettlefold said. ‘That’s what we need you for. They’re ready to pick. We don’t have much but when they’re ripe all at once, we need to move quickly. With the local boys all gone and the Italians locked away in that camp over the border at Loveday, we had to ask the Land Army for a girl.’

  Mrs Nettlefold looked her over again. ‘Girl,’ she muttered, shaking her head. She opened the car door and slipped off her pile of hessian sacks. Before Flora could gather up her handbag, Mrs Nettlefold had slammed her door shut with a loud crunch and was striding up a stone path towards the back of the house. She might have been about the shortest person Flora had ever met but she was fast.

  Flora quickly grabbed her suitcase from the back seat, slipped the strap of her handbag over her shoulder, and followed as fast as she could.

  At the back door, Mrs Nettlefold stopped, turned and nodded her head towards the cow, grazing quietly in the shade. ‘Ever milked a cow?’

  ‘No. But I’m sure I can learn.’

  Flora wasn’t sure which was louder: Mrs Nettlefold’s huff of indignation or the slam of the wooden flyscreen door after her.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Here’s your room then, Miss Atkins.’

  The bedroom was situated at one end of the lean-to at the back of the house. The curtains had been drawn against the heat. Flora glanced inside, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light.

  ‘It’s not much but there’s a comfortable bed.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Nettlefold.’ Flora nodded, politely acknowledging her host. She’d been advised before she left Melbourne that she was to board in the Nettlefold’s house as they only needed one Land Army girl. She had liked the idea that she would be staying with a family.

  Mrs Nettlefold waved an arm in front of her impatiently. ‘Go on then, in you go.’

  The room was narrow but long. At the far end, a single bed with a dark wooden bedhead was pushed up against the wall. Two plump pillows lay on crisp white sheets pulled tight. To the immediate right of the doorway sat a small chest of three drawers with an oval mirror on a swivel on top of it. A lace doily had been prettily positioned with an opaque green vase on top, empty. Flora knew immediately that she would put her parents’ wedding photograph there right alongside the picture of Jack to make the room feel more homely.

  A single wooden chair sat next to the bed with a folded towel on it. Neat and tidy. Plain and practical. This would do.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Nettlefold. I’m sure I’ll be comfortable here.’ Flora gripped the handle of her suitcase. Her head felt itchy under her Land Army hat. She still wasn’t used to it or perhaps it was slightly too small for her head. She had a big head for a woman. Frank used to tease her about it. ‘Full of brains,’ had always been her retort.

  Mrs Nettlefold looked her up and down. ‘You’re tall for a girl.’

  If Flora had known the woman better, she might have said that compared with her, everyone else was. But she held her tongue.

  ‘My mother was tall,’ Flora said.

  Mrs Nettlefold looked up at Flora with narrowed and curious eyes. ‘Your mother has passed?’

  Flora hadn’t been asked about her mother, hadn’t had to tell anyone about her for so long, that the question came as a shock.

  ‘Yes. Many years ago now.’

  ‘Well.’ Mrs Nettlefold averted her eyes. ‘Who has a family untouched by sadness these days? Tell me that. Well, then. Put your case down and unpack. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘A cuppa sounds lovely.’

  Mrs Nettlefold closed the door behind her as she left. Flora set her suitcase down and tugged the curtains wide open, revealing louvre windows running the full length of her room. She’d leave them closed for now while it was still hot outside but guessed that at night they’d tease in the cooling breeze. When she pressed her nose up against them, all she could see was vines in a shimmering haze, like a million impressionist painter’s brushstrokes. She lifted her hat from her head and tossed it onto the bed. When she sat on the crisp taut sheets, the bed squeaked, which made her wonder if she might keep the Nettlefolds awake with her tossing and turning. She hadn’t slept a full night through since Frank had enlisted.

  She swivelled, lifting her legs onto the bed and dropping her head on the pillows, trying them out for size. Yes, her feet would hang over the end of the bed but needs must and how could she grumble about that when she’d landed in such a beautiful place for her first Land Army posting? She was already planning how she would describe it to her father when she wrote her first letter home. Red earth and green vines and blue skies, Dad. It’s heavenly.

  Flora knew she should find the kitchen and accept with thanks the cup of tea Mrs Nettlefold had offered, but she needed a moment. It had been quite a journey to Two Rivers and an even longer two weeks since she’d enlisted in the Land Army and waited anxiously for her first posting. It felt as if she’d crammed ten years of adventures into a few short weeks.

  Her breathing slowed and she laid her hands flat on her growling stomach. It grumbled.

  ‘Hello there?’

  There was a voice from far away in her ears. It sounded like Frank. His cheery face appeared behind her eyes and he was laughing in his uniform, his slouch hat rakishly askew on his head, and Flora reached out to tousle his hair.

  ‘Miss Atkins?’

  Her eyes shot open. She didn’t recognise the white sloping ceiling above her or the small bulb hanging from a dark-brown cord. She jerked upright and gasped. ‘Oh my goodness.’ In the tangle of swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she almost fell to the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’ Two solid footsteps on the li
noleum. She righted herself and stood.

  ‘You didn’t. Well, actually … how rude of me …’ Flora smoothed down her skirt and hoped her shirt was still tucked in. She looked up, tried to ignore the hot blush of embarrassment in her cheeks.

  Who was this? The voice that had sounded like Frank was not Frank, she could see that now. The man was so tall he had to duck under the doorframe to step inside. He quickly lifted his wide-brimmed hat from his head, which revealed a damp and messy head of dark, almost black hair with streaks of grey at his temples. The sleeves of his collarless shirt were rolled up past his elbows, and he had the kind of deep tan she expected a man of the land would have.

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘I knocked but there was no answer.’ ‘I don’t know what came over me. I must have fallen asleep.’

  ‘That’s no surprise. You’ve had a long day, I expect.’ He held on to the brim of his hat and nodded a greeting. ‘I’m Charles Nettlefold.’

  Flora stared at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘This is my family’s fruit block.’

  ‘Oh.’ Flora shook her head. ‘I was expecting someone older. Mrs Nettlefold. I thought she—’

  If he’d offered her a smile, it had disappeared by the time he lifted his eyes from a quick glance at her shoes. ‘My mother.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the station. I got caught up here in the drying shed. A sprayer decided to stop spraying.’

  ‘Please. There’s no need to apologise.’

  ‘You had a pleasant trip up from Melbourne, I hope?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Thank you.’

  ‘My mother is brewing another pot of tea if you’d care for a cup.’

  ‘Thank you. I would.’

  ‘We’re in the kitchen. When you’re ready.’ Charles ducked under the doorway and closed the door behind him.