The Land Girls

by Victoria Purman

  They went back up to the house and woke the girls. Their single beds were a mirror of each other in the dark room, except one pillow cradled blonde hair and the other a dark spray of messy curls. Charles sat on Violet’s bed and Flora on Daisy’s.

  When they stirred, their father told them what had happened. Violet climbed into her father’s arms, sobbing. Daisy clung to Flora like a limpet on a rock. The little girls were held and comforted, their heads were stroked and soft words of support were uttered until there were finally no more tears.

  As Charles cradled Violet in his arms, he looked across at Flora. His soft, loving gaze was an invitation.

  Stay and be a part of this family.

  Leeton, New South Wales

  April 15th, 1944

  Dear Charles,

  Firstly, thank you for all your letters. A big bundle of them finally found me here in Leeton. I so enjoyed hearing about all the goings on at Two Rivers, the latest with the girls and your mother. Please pass on my fondest regards to all of them when you get this.

  This is a pleasant property and there are eight of us girls here. We have little sectioned-off rooms on the verandah of a big farmhouse, which are all enclosed, thankfully. The other girls are so young, one only seventeen, so I do feel rather like their spinster aunt. I especially feel the difference in our ages when they chatter about the latest popular crooner and their plans to head into town for the weekend dances. It’s quite a social spot. The girls have convinced me more than once to go the pictures with them. It’s a lovely art deco cinema, rather like the Ozone in Mildura, and we’ve seen so many movies I can’t honestly say I can tell one from the other. All I can report to you is that there has been dancing, swashbuckling pirates, and a little too much of Douglas Fairbanks and Jeanette McDonald. I can’t bring myself to stay for the war movies, which seem to be very popular, especially among the younger men, who stream out into the foyer afterwards clutching their empty boxes of Jaffas and yelling ‘Bonzai’, which I find rather unsettling.

  All these excursions help the time pass and stop me from thinking about Frank quite so much and from missing you. As I’m hoeing weeds in the potato fields, I imagine I’m back at Two Rivers picking sultana grapes, looking out across the vines, anticipating your mother’s dinners and more time spent with you.

  Charles, you’ve been so understanding about my Land Army work and what drives me to keep going. We’re not the only ones making sacrifices for the war, are we?

  We haven’t heard from Frank for a month and as every day passes, I fear for him more and more. All I can do is cling to the hope that all this will end and, when he is home, we will all look back on these years knowing that we displayed an enormous sense of courage and sacrifice, even in the midst of such despair.

  Hug the girls for me and let your mother know that I’m saving all her recipes to my notebook so that when I go home for good, I might add them to my vast repertoire.

  With fondest regards,

  Flora

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lily

  April 1944

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Can’t believe what?’ Kit asked as she flopped her head forwards and wrapped a towel around it like a turban.

  ‘Susan is married.’ Lily’s hands shook with excitement at the news, so much that she could barely read her mother’s handwriting. She was sitting on her bed in Land Army quarters on a farm in Athelstone, in Adelaide’s foothills. She and Kit and a dozen other girls were picking turnips and beans and pulling onions for a farmer with a military contract. There was plenty of work, seven days a week of it, and they were into their third month of hard scrabbling in the dirt, but Lily was still with Kit and that made everything easier to bear.

  ‘She still in Africa somewhere?’

  ‘The Middle East, in the Australian Army Medical Corp. Last time we were told she was in an Australian General Hospital in Egypt. Oh my goodness.’

  ‘Who did she marry?’

  ‘An English doctor.’ Lily scanned her mother’s letter quickly, looking for details among the complaints about it being done abroad, her daughter being married in her uniform, in a registry office, with a man the family hadn’t even met, much less heard of until the announcement. ‘He’s a major in the Royal Army Medical Corp. Colin Wells. They had leave a month ago and were back in London. They decided on the spot to get married. She’s now Mrs Colin Wells.’

  ‘Or should that be Mrs Major Colin Wells? Or Mrs Major Doctor Colin Wells.’ Kit laughed. ‘Such a fancy-pants name. He’s probably a duke too, isn’t he? Or a prince!’

  Lily stared at the letter and tried not to feel guilty about the wave of melancholic sadness that engulfed her. Of course she was happy for her sister. She mourned the loss of not having been there for such a moment, and for her sister not having been able to be in Adelaide for her own wedding. Wars tore people apart in more ways than she could count. There was a surprise too in hearing that someone as intellectual as Susan had even considered giving her hand to anyone. She must love Colin very much. Perhaps she’d lived through some experiences that had led her to change her mind when it came to marriage and settling down?

  You should grab happiness when it’s close. Lily knew that. What was the point in waiting when no one knew what tomorrow, or the next hour or even the next minute, would bring?

  Lily thought back to her simple registry-office wedding and glanced at her plain wedding band. Had Susan had a real honeymoon? Was London still too much under siege to let a couple celebrate? Lily remembered her own honeymoon, as much as it was, her one night shared with David as husband and wife. They had made love precisely three times and that was now nearly eighteen months ago. She’d been apart from him three times as long as she’d known him.

  ‘Lil,’ Kit called, and Lily looked up from her letter.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Write to David. You’ll feel better.’

  Lily rummaged through her suitcase for David’s most recent letter. The envelope was so small, his writing so neat, and the stamp Passed by Censor was imprinted in it in a blue diamond. She needed to read it again, to feel him close, to create in her mind’s eye a picture of where he had been when he’d taken pencil to paper. Had he been in a barracks? A tent? Sitting in an aircraft? Safe somewhere or on guard? How would she ever know?

  May 1st, 1944

  Abroad

  Darling Lily,

  Just a few lines to say that I’m well and being well looked after. I’ve received so many of your letters, which are such precious and wonderful reminders that you are waiting for me at home. I thought I might keep it a secret and surprise you but I have plans for a huge party when I return. What do you think of all the champagne we can drink and a Persian tent erected in your parents’ back yard? Do you remember that night, when we decided not to go to Evelyn Wood’s twenty-first birthday party in Fitzroy, and walked back to my apartment instead? The only thing I regret about that night is that we didn’t sneak down the driveway and see it for ourselves. I recreate that wonderful evening every night in my dreams, Lily. I’d love to give you such a party, as a way of celebrating my return and announcing to the world in a way we didn’t get the chance to, that you are my wife and I love you with everything I have.

  I continue to be so proud of you for your Land Army work. Who would have thought I’d chosen a girl with such grit and tenacity?

  I can’t tell you exactly where I am but please know that I am safe. I can rest more easily at night knowing you are so far away from things and I pray you remain so.

  I’m very much looking forward to your next letter in which I hope you’ll tell me all about your latest horticultural adventures in Australia’s wide brown land.

  Your ever-loving husband,

  David

  P.S. I love you with all my heart.

  Lily lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling of the old farmhouse that was their quarters, and clutched David’s letter to her chest. She had lived her en
tire life in the same house in Buxton Street until she’d joined the Land Army and since then she’d lived in so many different places. Not one of them had been her marital home. She’d picked cherries, harvested flax and potatoes, and now onions and turnips. Her latest horticultural adventures indeed. Her fingers and hands were a farmer’s now. There was always dirt in the fine lines of her knuckles and she’d developed protective callouses on her palms. She’d had to order new Land Army shirts, as she’d broadened in the shoulders since she’d been working manually. Would she be better at tennis now she was stronger? The thought made her smile. She must talk to Kit about heading back to Norton Summit for the cherry season. She would have a better softball swing now, that was for sure.

  She sat up, found her pencil and wrote her reply to her husband. Before she signed off, she remembered to add, ‘I’ll be brave and you be safe, remember?’

  Weeks and weeks of work went by until winter arrived in the Adelaide foothills, bringing with it cold mornings and an occasional frost. The Land Army girls rugged up in extra jumpers, wrapped their heads in scarves and their feet in extra pairs of socks to bear the cold and, at night, needed extra blankets to keep them warm in the unheated quarters.

  The crops were so abundant that year, and the need for labour so great, that the government in Canberra had decided to allow some Italian prisoners of war to work on local farms. Their employer, Mr Norris, had gathered the girls together one morning to explain the changed arrangements.

  ‘Now that Mussolini and his mob have been defeated, the government has decided to let some of those POWs work. I’ll keep them away from you girls as much as I can. They’ll be over on the other end of the property picking the celery. Don’t talk to them and if any of them get familiar, you let me know right away.’

  Kit had whispered to Lily. ‘Too late. I’ve already been familiar with an Italian. Enzo Zocchi, back in primary school. He kissed me behind the shelter shed at Campbell-town Primary School.’

  The Italians kept their distance and the girls continued to work long days in the fields. Lily had found comfort in the evenings in sitting by the radio with a cup of hot Milo, a blanket over her knees and her friend Kit for company. They’d long ago exhausted their game of what they would do when the war was over, and now could sit in companionable silence, listening to the radio, humming along to songs they recognised.

  On the night of Wednesday 7 June, 1944, it wasn’t music they were listening to in their quarters. The Allied invasion of France had begun and every girl was absolutely silent, hands clenched in prayer, hanging on every word being broadcast from the wireless.

  The announcer spoke quickly, urgently. ‘Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces supported by strong air forces began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.

  ‘Four years later, almost to the hour of the evacuation of Dunkirk, we go back to the same Normandy coast which saw the closing chapter of the battle of France. The Allied invasion of Europe from the west is launched. Today is D-day, the second front and the second battle for France. This is the last great act of liberation of the war. Four years ago, Europe was Hitler’s and the lights of the free world went out. Now the world of free men strikes in all its assembled might at the weakening chains of bondage. The great curtain of secrecy is still drawn but the first of a series of landings is in force, sustained by eleven thousand first line aircraft.’

  And then General Eisenhower said something too but Lily and Kit were dancing and whooping and crying at the news, and every single girl there joined in until they were all laughing and letting themselves imagine the tide really had turned.

  The next day, Lily’s mother arrived in a taxi with a picnic basket full of cakes freshly baked by Davina. One of the farm managers came to find her and after the initial panic of being called out of the field, Lily was relieved to have the respite. She was cold, her fingers were stiff and her back ached. Her mother was waiting in the dining room for her, and there was hot tea, and delicious treats to eat, and for a moment Lily listened while her mother once again tried to convince her to come home.

  ‘Did you hear the news yesterday? I’ve brought you the paper so you can read it for yourself.’

  Lily unfolded The Advertiser. Right there on the front page was a large map of Europe. England, Sardinia, Corsica, Russia and half of Italy were shaded. Allies. Those countries left white were still under Nazi control. An arrow marked out Normandy on the French coast.

  Allies Slash Way Into North France, Cherbourg-Le Havre Beaches Stormed the headline announced in capital letters. It was reassuring to see it in print, that an armada of four thousand ships had sailed across the English Channel, that tens of thousands of troops had stormed ashore. The Allied forces had sent eleven thousand aircraft into the invasion, strafing miles of Normandy beaches, dropping thousands of tonnes of bombs on enemy positions, and flying inland to break communication lines.

  ‘We’re on our way to victory, Lily, and I’ve never felt happier about a headline in my entire life.’

  Lily sighed, studying her mother’s face. It wasn’t just husbands who were away fighting. It was sisters and daughters too. Lily felt a wave of sympathy for her mother, something she’d not been gracious enough to feel before.

  ‘I’m so excited and happy for Susan, Mum. Have you heard any more details of the wedding?’

  Mrs Thomas opened her purse, found a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. ‘Only the telegram, which I wrote to you about in my last letter. How wonderful for her to have fallen in love, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ Lily said, leaning in to kiss her mother’s cheek. ‘It really is. I’m sorry for what I put you through with David. Our impulsive marriage, I mean. I don’t regret it one bit, but I realise now that you’ve been robbed of two daughters’ weddings. I’m sorry you weren’t there for either of them.’

  ‘Oh, Lilian.’

  ‘The war really has turned everything upside down, hasn’t it?’

  Lily’s mother stilled, and tears rolled down her face. She didn’t bother to mop them up this time. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I haven’t understood until now how hard this has been on you. I apologise for that.’

  Mrs Thomas stared off into the distance a moment. ‘I received a letter from my cousin yesterday. Her son, Archie, died in New Guinea. It was malaria.’

  ‘How awful,’ Lily whispered.

  ‘To go all that way and be so brave, and to be killed by a mosquito. It’s rather appalling.’

  Lily poured them both another cup of tea and sliced another piece of Davina’s cake.

  ‘I came here today to ask you to come home, you know.’

  Lily couldn’t fight the feeling that her mother was seeing her for the first time. ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘Your father isn’t sleeping. The house feels too empty and I said I would try to convince you. But I see how you’re thriving and I’m not going to ask you. At the end of the day, you’re a married woman who can do whatever she chooses.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Lily sighed. ‘What say I come home on my next day off? It won’t be for a couple of weeks but I’m sure I can arrange a Sunday. I’m not too far from home after all.’

  ‘He’d like that. So would I.’

  Davina had whipped up a celebratory spread that had Lily’s eyes watering. A platter in the middle of the dining table was filled with a glistening roast chicken, surrounded by honeyed baby carrots and new potatoes garnished with parsley. A boat filled with gravy next to the platter called to Lily. Her father had brought up a bottle of his finest French red wine from the cellar and had decanted it into a crystal bottle to breathe. Lily sat in her chair, wearing a pretty dress she hadn’t slipped on in the longest time and, just for a moment, was able to pretend the world wasn’t at war. Her parents seemed excessively happy to have her home and they talked about Susan’s latest letter and played a guessing game about who her husband might resemble: Churchill or the ki
ng. Lily hoped, for Susan’s sake, that he was more like Errol Flynn or Cary Grant.

  ‘It’s a pity they weren’t able to have a honeymoon,’ Mrs Thomas said with a sigh, before glancing at Lily and remembering that her youngest daughter hadn’t had one either. ‘And you too, Lily. Your father and I had the most wonderful trip to Paris not long after we were married.’ She hesitated, her expression suddenly bereft. ‘It’s dreadful to think of what Parisians must have endured during all these years of occupation.’ Her mother shivered. ‘And to think that a swastika flies from the Eiffel Tower now …’

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ Mr Thomas replied. ‘The Allies are on their way to Paris and before long they’ll liberate all of France. And then they’ll be on to Berlin. Hitler’s men don’t stand a chance with the Russians coming from the east. And General MacArthur’s troops are moving through the Pacific, island by island. Some are saying we could have victory by Christmas but I—’

  ‘Christmas?’ Lily’s fork was suspended midair and the peas on its tines tumbled back down to her china plate. December? That was still too long to wait. It was June. Six more months? There were too many battles that would be fought before then in which young men would die. ‘You don’t think it will be over by then, Dad? There were so many troops and ships and planes …’

  Mr Thomas paused, staring at his dinner for a moment. ‘I don’t think so, Lily. There are still many battles ahead.’

  ‘Can’t we hope for the best at least?’ Mrs Thomas said, trying to bring some cheer back to the evening.

  ‘Yes, let’s hope and pray,’ Lily replied. ‘That by Christmas, Susan and David and everyone else will be home in the arms of those who love them.’

  On Sunday morning, Lily woke from a deep sleep in the comfort of her bed, with clean sheets and soft pillows and a woollen blanket so warm and soft it felt as if she was enveloped in clouds. For the first few moments she half-dozed, turning to the window to judge by the sliver of light leaching through the gap in the curtains what time it might be. Had she slept in? Or had so many months in the Land Army changed her habits so completely that she would rise at five forty-five without even trying? She was about to roll over to the wall and close her eyes again when she heard the commotion outside her door. She pushed herself up to sitting and listened. Had the doorbell sounded? There were galloping footsteps up and down the stairs and a whispered conversation in the hallway outside her bedroom door. She threw back her blankets, pushed her feet into her slippers, draped her dressing gown over her shoulders and tiptoed to the door. Her hand on the brass knob, she pressed her ear against the small crack between the door and the frame.