Authors: Anne Bennett
‘I am too really,’ Meg said.
When an army truck with a canvas roof and sides stopped at the bottom of the marble steps another girl said, ‘Don’t you think our chaps were just as nervous as us? Mine was when he was called up when they took the younger ones in for training, but he still went.’
‘Yeah,’ Meg said. ‘So let’s stop moaning about our nerves. I mean, it don’t help and it seems like we’re all in the same boat anyway.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said a voice behind Meg, and she turned to find herself looking at the driver of the truck, who was a woman. She was more than twice their age, and though she wore no makeup, her face seemed very smooth. Her brown hair was daringly cut very short and she was wearing trousers. She smiled at them all and said in a rather deep voice for a woman, ‘All right, girls, my name is Rita Partridge and I am here to look after you. We will just have a bit of a roll call and see that I’ve got everyone I should have and then we will be on our way.’
Everyone was there. Altogether there were twenty, and eighteen of those were directed to climb into the truck. Some did this with difficulty because of the unsuitable clothes they wore. But once the eighteen had clambered aboard, it was obvious there was no room for any more – as it was the girls were packed together tightly.
‘God, it’s sweltering in here,’ one of the girls protested, and others agreed as the day was really warm, and so Rita rolled up the canvas sides to let some air through.
Meanwhile Meg and Joy were standing about like spare dinners. ‘What about us?’ Joy said.
‘You’ll have to squeeze in beside me, that’s all,’ Rita said. ‘Be a bit of a squash but there you are. I did query the size of the truck but they said that’s all there was.’
‘It’ll have to do then,’ Meg said, and they both squeezed into the cab beside Rita.
She turned on the engine, swung the truck round effortlessly and it rumbled over the cobbled city streets. They were on their way and Meg felt excitement catch hold of her. Whatever lay ahead would be nothing like the life she had led this far, and that in itself was exciting.
The journey was a long one and at first there was a lot of chatter amongst so many, but gradually it quietened to a steady murmur as the city was left far behind. Fields were either side of them now, and here and there an isolated cottage. Despite the early hour, sometimes they’d see signs of activity, especially amongst the children. Some would watch wide-eyed as the truck rumbled past with their fingers in their mouths, while others might wave or run alongside the truck, which made them all smile.
Most of the fields were cultivated and Rita would name all the different crops to Meg and Joy. Some vegetables, such as cabbages, were obvious, and Rita pointed out the peas growing upwards supported by a frame.
Rita reminisced, ‘When I was a child, that was my job on Sunday morning, to pod enough peas for dinner, but it was never a bother for me because I used to love to do it. Anyway it was worth it, because those fresh garden peas tasted delicious.’
‘I love them,’ Meg agreed.
‘What about these fields we’re passing now?’ Joy asked. The land was furrowed and whatever was growing there was underneath the soil, for all that could be seen was a lot of greenery. ‘Potatoes,’ Rita said. ‘And beyond that is sugar beet.’ She waved to the people already working in the fields. ‘And lots of root vegetables: carrots, turnips, swedes and onions – that sort of thing … Now girls,’ she shouted into the back, ‘we’re passing by Oldbury. It’s a nice little market town but the streets are narrow, not built for trucks like these.’
Rita was right. All Meg saw was a cluster of pretty houses and shops and a church spire peeping over the roofs. ‘Now, apart from the odd hamlet, there isn’t much until we come to West Bromwich,’ Rita said when they were through the town and on the open road again. ‘We’ll pick up the Birmingham Canal there and follow it all the way to Coseley.’
‘Golly, I haven’t seen a canal in years,’ Meg said.
Joy stared at her. ‘You are joking?’
‘No.’
‘But Birmingham is threaded with canals.’
‘Not our way it isn’t,’ Meg said. ‘Dad took me and our Terry to Gas Street Basin once and we saw all those painted barges and that, but I don’t think the others have ever been. Mind you, I liked the barges, but I thought the water was really dirty and smelly.’
‘That’s because a lot of the factories were built to back onto the canals,’ Rita said. ‘And all their effluent and waste were just tipped into them.’
‘Dad said we have more than Venice,’ Joy said. ‘Not that he’s been or anything, but he read it somewhere.’
‘Venice is in Italy, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ Joy said. ‘And they sort of live on the water. They have river taxis and river buses and all sorts.’
However, before they saw the canal they passed a field that appeared to be empty until Meg spotted the horses sheltering under a tree.
‘What enormous horses,’ Joy exclaimed. ‘And look at their shaggy feet.’
‘Our Co-op milkman has one like that,’ Meg said. ‘He told me horses like that are called Shires.’
‘That’s right,’ Rita said. ‘Built for stamina and strength, not speed, and more important than ever now that tractors are hard to come by. Not that all farmers hold with tractors, anyway. A fair few want to stick with their horses.’
One of the horses gave a snicker and then a snort, nodding his head as if in disgust. ‘Probably making a protest about horses being replaced by machines,’ Meg said with a laugh.
‘I think it’s just that they don’t like the smell of petrol,’ Rita said. ‘Cows don’t seem to mind.’
Again Rita was right because the black and white cows in the neighbouring field had their heads over the fence, jostling for position, their large brown eyes fastened on the truck chugging past as they stood patiently chewing.
‘Why are they eating like that all the time?’ one girl asked, and her voice was so high-pitched that they heard it in the front of the cab, even over the noise of the engine.
‘It’s called chewing the cud,’ Rita called out, as she negotiated the country roads with ease. ‘A cow is able to regurgitate its food because it has four stomachs.’
‘Ugh. That’s disgusting.’
Rita laughed. ‘’Course it isn’t, it’s nature. That’s how they make the milk, and you won’t think “Ugh” when you have it on your porridge tomorrow, will you now?’
‘Don’t suppose so.’
‘One thing we have plenty of is milk,’ Rita said. ‘And you might be glad of it before you are much older.’
They passed signs to West Bromwich. Rita turned the truck instead towards Coseley and there, running alongside the road, was the canal. Although Meg knew it was probably torpid and oil-slicked, it looked quite attractive with the sun shining on it, making the water gleam.
The truck rattled along merrily, and now and again, through a gap in the hedgerow Meg could see the towpath running alongside the canal. Sometimes people were on it and occasionally she got a glimpse of a vibrantly bedecked barge, but then at Coseley they left the canal.
‘Is it much further?’ she asked as they drove through a little place called Darlaston.
‘Not much further,’ Rita said. ‘Are you uncomfortable?’
‘I’m hot more than anything,’ Meg said. ‘And my bottom’s gone to sleep and I’m not at all sure about the rest of me.’
Rita let out a gale of laughter. ‘In a few minutes we will be driving through a place called Willenhall and Wolverhampton just lies to the west of it, but we have to go another ten miles or so to Penkridge.’
‘Dad says Wolverhampton is a sizeable place.’
‘Oh, it is,’ Rita said. ‘It is your nearest big town – well worth a visit if ever you have the time.’
‘I presume we get some time off?’ Joy said.
‘Well,’ said Rita, ‘I think officially you work fifty hours, now reduced to forty-eight in the winter with one day off a week, but all I’m saying is there are times when the farms are extra busy, such as at harvest or spring planting, and the hours can’t be so rigid; but they’ll likely give you more time later when it is quieter.’
‘Oh, I think we understand that well enough,’ Joy said. ‘I don’t think in any kind of farming the hours can be as exact as that.’
‘You’ll soon get the hang of it,’ Rita said. ‘And look now, Huntington is just ahead and Penkridge Lodge where you’re staying is just this side of the village. Only a step away.’
Meg couldn’t quite believe it when Rita turned the truck through wrought-iron gates and down a gravel path. Her startled eyes met the equally amazed ones of Joy as Rita drew up in front of an enormous mansion set in its own grounds. It was three storeys high and built of honey-coloured bricks. A cream balustrade ran all along the first and second floors, and marble steps led up to the impressive studded oak door.
‘Wow,’ said Meg as the truck stopped with a squeal of brakes and a spray of gravel.
‘Right, ladies, we’re here,’ Rita shouted to those in the back, and she leaped down from the cab like a woman half her age. Meg and Joy got down much more gingerly to see the others, equally stiff-limbed, staring around as if they too could hardly believe they would be staying in such a place during training.
‘Blimey, look at all them chimneys,’ one girl said.
‘My mom was in service here before she got married,’ another said. ‘She told me what this place was like. And you’ve got to remember that every chimney leads to a grate for a little servant girl to clean out every morning, and then light and keep alight all day and into the evening, which involved carrying heavy buckets of coal up and down stairs all day. My mom swears that she has one arm longer than the other because of it.’
‘I bet she had to clean the windows too,’ Meg said. ‘And there’s hundreds of them, and some of them have got circles on them.’
‘And if Mary’s mother didn’t clean them,’ Rita put in, ‘someone else must have done, and fairly recently too, because see how they are sparkling in the sun?’
‘Yeah, it’s lovely,’ Meg said. ‘It will be great to stay here.’
‘Oh, I’ll say,’ Joy said. ‘I can stand a bit of this. When I joined up they didn’t tell us we would be living in the lap of luxury.’
‘You probably won’t be,’ Rita warned. ‘This is really only while you’re being trained. You might find many of the farms a bit primitive.’
‘And we stay on the farms?’
‘Ideally,’ Rita said. ‘But that really depends on the farm. If the farmer has a big family, or just a small farmhouse and there isn’t room for you to stay, then you could come back here. Now pick up your bags and baggage and we’ll go and meet Mrs Warburton, who will cook for you here.’
‘Through the front door?’ Meg asked in surprise as Rita mounted the marble steps.
‘But of course through the front door,’ Rita said, and swung it open. They all followed her into a large hall with a black and white checked floor and the magnificent sweep of a highly polished oak staircase. ‘Dump your things in the hall till we have your bedrooms assigned,’ Rita said. ‘You must have had your breakfast early and I bet you’re hungry.’
There was a murmur of agreement, though Meg hadn’t realised how hungry she was until Rita mentioned it. They followed behind her a little nervously as she crossed the hall, and Meg almost expected an officious and pompous butler to pop up and direct them to the servants’ entrance at the back.
‘I know just what you mean,’ Joy said when Meg whispered this to her. ‘You can almost see the ghosts of women in long dresses with satin slippers and men wearing suits that make them look like penguins.’
Meg smiled as Joy went on, ‘Seriously, though, who does this place belong to? Houses like this don’t usually stand empty.’
But this one certainly was. Rita, ahead of the line of them, had turned down a corridor and she was opening a green door. ‘That’s the green baize door Mom told me about,’ Joy said.
‘Did she know this house then?’
‘No, not this house,’ Joy said. ‘It’s in all big houses, and it separates the house where the posh people live from the kitchen and all the servants that look after them. It’s supposed to close silently so it doesn’t disturb them.’
And it did, Meg noticed, unless you could count the very slight ‘Ssh’ sound. It led into the biggest kitchen Meg had ever seen in her life. There was a huge old-fashioned cooker, gleaming copper pans hung from hooks, and floor-to-ceiling cupboards and shelves, and in the middle of the shiny tiled floor was a very large scrubbed wooden table.
Presiding over this was the woman Rita introduced as Mrs Warburton.
‘Never trust a thin cook,’ Joy whispered out of the side of her mouth, and Meg smiled because Mrs Warburton was a roly-poly kind of a woman, her brown frizzy hair was half covered with a hat and an apron was tied around her more-than-ample waist.
‘You’re very welcome,’ the cook said with a smile. ‘And though there is a dining room, it would hardly accommodate everyone, and anyway, I thought you might feel more at home in the servants’ hall.’
‘I don’t care where we eat,’ called a woman from the back. ‘Just as long as we do it soon.’
They were all soon sitting around a table even bigger than the one in the kitchen. Three large steaming casserole dishes were put before them along with two bowls of buttered potatoes. The food was delicious and Meg tucked in with relish, wondering at her appetite because she had done nothing but sit in a truck half the morning.
The stew was followed by jam roly-poly and about a ton of custard, and it was as everyone was finishing and the girls leaning back in their chairs, replete, that Mrs Warburton said to Rita, ‘Silas came in this morning.’
‘Oh, yes. What did he want?’
‘To see if you were here with the girls. I said that you wouldn’t be here till lunchtime.’
‘Why did he want to know?’
‘He says their help might be needed,’ Mrs Warburton said. ‘There’s a big storm coming.’
Meg looked at Joy and then at Rita, thinking of the heat of the day and for days past. It hadn’t rained for weeks. Rita obviously thought the same. ‘Surely not? It’s lovely out.’
Mrs Warburton shrugged. ‘S’what he said.’
‘Who’s this Silas?’ someone asked.
‘He’s an old fellow who helps in the gardens and he can predict the weather.’