‘I wish I had a cherry or two so I could lob them at you,’ Lily laughed.
‘You’d miss. I’ve seen you play softball,’ Kit retorted.
Lily looked out across the flax field at the hundreds of women undertaking the same back-breaking work. Harvesting flax was labour intensive. There were no tractors or ploughs, as each plant had to be pulled from the ground by hand and laid flat in a bundle to preserve the length of the fibres for processing.
‘That’s the important part, girls.’ Mr Ellis, the manager of the flax mill, had taken time to instruct them on their first day. ‘The plants will need to dry on the ground, and then you’ll be retting them with water to loosen the outer stalk. The next step is scutching, which removes the stalk. And then comes heckling, before it all gets taken off to the mill for spinning.’
As Lily tugged the plants from the dry earth, grasping and pulling, her head was still spinning from all the new words she’d have to learn. She knew that if she didn’t remember, she could always ask Kit. Kit seemed to know everything.
Lily straightened, wiped her sleeved arm across her forehead, lifted her straw hat and fanned her face. In the orchard, there had always been a cool spot under a tree or in the afternoon shadows as the sun lowered in the west. Out here, there wasn’t a tree to be seen. She looked east, where the Adelaide Hills rose up from the flat plains. She was a long way from Norton Summit now, working between the hills and the ocean.
Oh, how she longed for a swim in the sea. She had packed a swimsuit, knowing the flax farm wasn’t too far away, but hadn’t yet had a day off or the means to get to the beach. The girls had worked for two weeks straight without a day off. Her arms ached in a way they never had when she had been employed in the relative luxury of picking cherries.
There had been talk that there wouldn’t be a day off for another fortnight. She wondered how she would make it through, but when those doubts gnawed at her, when the pain twinged and burnt, she remembered David and Susan and parachutes and canvas tents and linen thread.
‘Kit,’ Lily called out.
Kit stood up tall and grimaced. ‘What?’
‘What are you going to do when the war’s over?’ It was a game they played to pass the time during the long hot days, to distract themselves from the dust in their eyes and ears and mouths, from the scratchy dried stalks that were prickly to handle, from the heat and the war. It was a way of imagining the end of the fighting, when life might return to how it was before the war.
‘I’m going to catch the train to Semaphore for an ice-cream and a swim.’
‘I’m taking the boat to Paris,’ someone else called out. ‘I want to see the Eiffel Tower and those dancers at the Moulin Rouge.’ A wit working nearby began to sing the can-can. ‘Da-da-de-dah de-dah-dah …’
‘And drink French champagne!’
The talk could go on all day. After they’d exhausted exotic locations and foods they’d missed, men they hadn’t kissed—and men they had—the talk became simpler, closer to home. There were wishes for children and comfortable beds and jobs in an office and silk stockings or a new frock.
Lily didn’t talk about David. His training continued in Mildura, which she was thankful for. He was due to complete his seventy-five hours in the sky by late April and then he would be off to the war. For now, she could still hold him close. She could still wish for a miracle, that the war might miraculously be over before he faced any real danger. But there seemed to be no hope of such a thing. At night at the hostel, there were tussles over the radio between those who wanted to listen to news of the war and those who didn’t. Someone would always crank the dial away from When A Girl Marries and Lily would catch snatches of what was going on in the Pacific or in Europe. The Americans had had a victory against the Japanese in a place in the Pacific called Guadalcanal, and the Germans had surrendered to the Russians at Stalingrad. The announcers on the radio hinted that the tide was turning, but the Japanese and Germans weren’t defeated yet. Nothing was going to happen in two short months, she’d come to realise, no matter how hard everyone wished it.
‘When the war’s over,’ Lily grunted as she tugged a flax plant out of the ground and threw it flat, ‘I plan to devour an entire pound of real butter on a batch of freshly baked scones.’
‘And sweets,’ Kit added. ‘I’m going to head into Haigh’s on Beehive Corner and buy a whole bag full of toffees. I won’t even care if I make myself sick.’
There was a grunt and a rustle and a thud, and when Lily looked over, Kit was flat on her backside, her legs splayed, clutching a flax plant in her hand.
‘You all right?’ Lily called.
Kit laughed and swore. ‘That sodding thing was stuck.’
In a flash, Lily was by her side, holding out her hand. Kit took it and got to her feet, her smile brighter than the sun blazing from the sky above. Two months passed and the flax harvesting continued. The war had been raging for three and a half years by March 1943 when the girls had three days off in a row over Easter. The temptation had been to go to bed and not leave it for the entire time, but a morning tea had been arranged for them, put on by the YWCA. Lily was well equipped to make small talk with strangers, and made up for Kit’s reticence to engage by dragging her by the arm and introducing her around.
Lily was regularly cheered by letters from home, in which her father expressed his pride in her role in such an important wartime occupation. She had developed the distinct impression that he hadn’t believed that cherry picking was real war work but he could now boast to his colleagues and acquaintances that both his daughters were doing something vital for the war effort. He had taken to slipping clippings from The Advertiser between the pages of his letters, featuring articles that he thought might be of interest to Lily, and sometimes a crossword. She hated doing the crossword but appreciated that he was thinking of her, even if he didn’t seem to know her at all.
At the end of April, when autumn had well and truly arrived and the breezes blowing off the ocean were chilling, Lily received her last letter from David before he shipped out.
My Dearest Lily,
Let me first say how proud I am of my wife for how hard you’re working on the flax, a vital commodity for our services and especially for us pilots. When I told my commanding officer in Mildura here what you were up to in the Land Army, he slapped his thigh in delight at knowing about such a thing. The knowledge of it helps me now, as I pack up and prepare to leave Mildura tomorrow. Thinking that you might have had a hand in creating the items that will keep me safe fills my heart with a deep pride and love. When I pull on my flying boots, I’ll think about the thread that binds the upper to the leather sole. When I strap on my parachute and climb into a plane, it will be as if your arms are wrapped around me.
Lil, I can’t put into words how much I miss you. When I think about how hasty we were, I can’t fight the feeling that I’ve failed you. If only we lived in a time when our marriage hadn’t had to be so rushed. We should have had a celebration with the finest food and bottles of champagne, with your family and mine present. I imagine that if we were living in different times, we might have sailed off to London for a honeymoon. I hope we will have the chance, one day soon, to be the honeymooners our circumstances denied us. We are young and one day should have the chance to celebrate what that means.
Kit sounds like a real card. I’m glad you’ve found such a friend. Promise me, won’t you, that you won’t lose touch with her? You’ll need a friend in the event you get the worst news. I feel I should be honest and not shy away from saying these things. If I can’t express my honest thoughts with my wife, who else? Kit will help you, as will my own father and mother. You would always be welcome at Millicent if I don’t come home. I am in a melancholy mood as I write. It can be no surprise to you, I expect, that the war feels very real to me now. If the worst should happen, my darling Lily, know that I love you with all my heart and soul. You are in my thoughts always and in my dreams. Remember the poem?
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies …
You are my beauty, Lily. You are my love and my hope. I couldn’t be happier that you married me and my most sincere wish is to come home and be your husband once again.
You be brave and I’ll be safe, remember?
I remain, as always, your loving and devoted husband,
David
Chapter Twenty-Two
Flora
March–August 1943
Two Rivers, Mildura
March 2nd, 1943
Dear Flora,
I hope this letter finds you well and that you’ve settled in to your new posting. Life is quiet around here without you, and we miss you at our table at dinner time. I don’t know if my mother has adjusted to cooking for only four of us again: we always seem to have so many leftovers. She sends her regards, by the way, as she is aware I am writing to you. Violet and Daisy ask after you often, and I have to remind them that there are no grapes left to pick now and that you’re off helping another family. My answer always seems to make them a bit down in the dumps. It is wrong for so many reasons to wish you back here next year, because we are all hoping that the war might be over by then, but you would be so welcome.
Violet is making great strides with her reading and Daisy is a champion mathematician, according to her teacher. They’re so young still and I’ve tried to keep them away from the truth of what’s going on abroad, but that’s a hard ask when children at school are being asked to collect rubber for the rubber drive and to do without because of rationing. It’s a parent’s instinct to keep their children safe, isn’t it? I try to imagine a future for them, one that’s lived in peace, but when the radio and the newspapers are full of such bad news from Europe and the Pacific, it’s hard to be hopeful.
Still, we go on, day by day, doing our best.
Flora, I hope Frank is safe, wherever he is. The girls say a prayer for him every night, and for all the boys who are abroad.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Fond regards,
Charles
Geelong, Victoria
April 4th, 1943
Dear Charles,
How lovely it was to receive your letter with all the latest news from Two Rivers.
Please encourage Violet to keep up her reading and Daisy to continue working on her sums. With that ability, she’ll have every chance of securing a good job in an office once she’s finished with school.
I’m safely here in Geelong with Mrs and Mrs Thompson on their farm. They’re both getting on in years and with two sons in the merchant navy, they’ve needed some help with general chores around the farm. You’ll no doubt laugh when I tell you that one of my jobs is to feed the chooks, something I managed to studiously avoid at Two Rivers. The best piece of advice Mr Thompson gave me was to take a broom when I go into the chook shed. It’s quite the scene when hundreds of chooks come at you all at once, flying and scratching, which was a bit frightening at first. Not to mention noisy! Making up the chook mash is another thing altogether. Your stomach will turn at the recipe: a boiled sheep’s head, vegetable peelings, pollard and bran all mixed together in a sludge. If I wasn’t so hungry at the end of the day I swear I might never eat an egg again, but there it is. Beggars can’t be choosers, as they say. I’ve also learnt a new skill: chopping firewood. I have the muscles of a man now, you’ll be shocked to know. Honestly, I’ve been so tired at the end of each day, that it’s all I can do to write a letter or two before falling asleep. Still, it’s good honest work and the Thompsons have been very welcoming. Just as I did at Two Rivers, I have a room of my own and a comfortable bed. There’s not much more a Land Army girl can ask for.
Well, I’m afraid there’s not much else to report. Please say my hellos to your mother (tell her I miss her cooking dreadfully) and to the girls. I think about you all often, and I especially miss the evenings we spent in your sitting room, playing cards and listening to jazz.
With fondest regards,
Flora
Two Rivers
June 14th, 1943
Dear Flora,
I hope this letter finds you in good health and that you’re staying away from those dangerous chooks. I know how hard you’ve been working so all of us here very much appreciate you making the time to reply to our letters and telling us how you’re getting on.
The pruning is over and it feels like winter now, even though we are officially only two weeks in. As you can imagine, the nights are cold and the days short. It seems cruel that we’ve been in drought for as long as the war has been raging, but there it is, and there’s no rain in sight. Without irrigation, Two Rivers wouldn’t have crops and many of the growers around here are all in the same boat. We wish for peace and we pray for rain in equal measure.
I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’ve read the Agatha Christie book you left, Evil Under The Sun, and I enjoyed it very much. The librarian at the Carnegie Library in Mildura is keeping an eye out for any others for me. Is there another you could recommend? There are many long hours to fill between dinner and bedtime these days. I often find I’m alone in the sitting room and I found reading the book you had loved a great comfort.
My mother has been teaching the girls to bake and they’ve filled many hours when the weather is wet and cold outside. So far, they’ve presented me with jumbles, melting moments, and Anzac biscuits back in April, which were both appropriate and delicious.
I also have some sad news to share. You might remember Mr Henwood from your time here in Two Rivers? He was informed a few weeks ago that his grandson, serving with the AIF, was killed in Malaya. It has brought a pall of sadness to all of us here. I hope all the news of your brother has been good and I wish him godspeed and a safe return to Australia when the war ends.
Fondest regards,
Charles Nettlefold
It was raining steadily and heavily the day Flora and Jack Atkins buried their father at the Burwood Cemetery on 4 August 1943. Great grey clouds hung low and ominous over Melbourne and a chill wind buffeted all those who’d come to pay their respects: the Whites, the Craigies, the Plummers and the Tilleys from Waterloo Street; workmates of her father’s from the council; relatives from her father’s side of the family who she hadn’t seen in a decade; and two of her cousins from her mother’s side, the son and daughter of her aunt from Traralgon, who’d offered warm embraces and words of solace. It was the next closest thing to having her mother with her on such a terrible day, and she clung to them during the service.
For Flora the past five days had been a blur of tears and grief and coming to the heartbreaking understanding that she and her brothers were orphans now. With both their parents gone, Flora felt the immense weight of responsibility and duty, more than she ever had, to ensure that the ties that bound them would never loosen or come undone. She was the oldest, the girl, the one on whom the onus fell to keep the Atkins family together.
‘Another cuppa, Flor?’
Flora looked up. Jack stood in the doorway to the living room in Waterloo Street. Outside, the rain continued to lash at the windows and the bare branches of the frangipani scraped against the glass.
‘Yes, thanks, Jack.’
‘Won’t be a moment.’ He nodded and went to the kitchen. Flora sat back on the sofa opposite her father’s favourite chair. His bakelite ashtray still sat on the table next to it, clean and empty, and a copy of The Age from the day he’d died, the thirty-first of July, was folded on the table, untouched since Jack had found him, cold and blue, in his chair.
She’d been feeding the chooks at the Thompsons in Geelong the next morning when the local superintendent from the Land Army arrived with a message for her. Mr Thompson had solemnly summoned her back to the house, telling her someone from the Land Army was there to see her. She barely remembered it now, that five-minute walk, her thoughts scattered and confused, fearing the worst about Frank, having imagined a thousand times that this day might come
and being caught completely unprepared anyway. Was this how she was to find out about her brother’s death? From a total stranger?
She’d stepped into the kitchen. A woman in a khaki uniform sat with Mrs Thompson, who was clutching a handkerchief to her mouth.
‘You have news for me?’ Flora asked, trying to be strong and capable and stoic when inside she felt nothing but dread.
The superintendent cleared her throat and stood. ‘Your brother, Mr Jack Atkins, is urgently trying to get a message to you.’
Flora felt every limb turn to stone.
‘Oh, Flora,’ Mrs Thompson murmured. ‘If only we had a telephone, you could call him right now.’
‘It’s your father, I’m afraid, Miss Atkins.’
The superintendent drove Flora in to Geelong to the office of the Manpower Directorate so she could use their telephone. Through his own tears, Jack told her that their father had died the night before, in his favourite chair by the fire.
‘A stroke, the doctor said,’ Jack had told her. ‘I was out at the Tivoli and he was happy as Larry when I left him. When I got home …’
‘I’m coming, Jack. I’m coming home.’
Flora’s heart broke at the thought that her father had been all alone with the wireless, his son Frank and his wife, pictured at eighteen years old in her wedding dress, looking down over him from the mantelpiece.
Jack carried Flora’s cup of tea to her and she reached out for it. The cup clinked on the saucer and she sipped the hot brew, trying to steady herself. Jack sat next to her.
‘Do you think Frank got the telegram?’ he asked. ‘That he knows?’
‘I’m sure he has,’ Flora replied, although she had no sure knowledge that the telegram they’d sent from the Camberwell post office the day she’d returned home on compassionate leave had yet reached him in the jungle.
‘He’ll let us know, won’t he?’ Jack asked, sniffing, his voice far away. ‘I can’t think about how hard that’ll hit him. Not being able to be here. For today, especially.’
The Land Girls Page 21
