Authors: Anne Bennett
‘Yes,’ Meg said. ‘Not Terry, though. He’s already left home. As soon as he was finished with school at fourteen he went to work in a mate’s shop and he lives above the premises.’
‘Not your youngest sister either,’ Enid said. ‘I was told it was school-age children only.’
Meg gave a strangled sob and tears squeezed from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, and Stephen’s felt his whole stomach lurch at the anticipation of more bad news. She shook her head mutely as Stephen dropped her hand and instead put his arm around her. She hesitated for a moment, aware that what she had to say exposed her father in the worst light possible and she felt shamed by what he had done, but it had to be told. So pressed, against Stephen’s shoulder and in a voice little above a whisper she said, ‘My father put Ruth in an orphanage.’
There were gasps from all of them, for Joy hadn’t known about that either, and then Meg said bitterly. ‘All that talk about marrying Doris to protect them was just so much eye wash. If he wanted to keep the kids out of care why did he just deliver one into their waiting arms? I can’t bear to think of what Ruth is going through, what she thinks has happened to us all. She is too young to understand, and as far as she is concerned we have just disappeared into thin air. It breaks me up inside when I think about that. I know in time she will forget us all and while that is upsetting, it is better for her that she does.’
She gave a sudden gulp and tears ran afresh as she said brokenly, ‘I had the care of Ruth for two years since the day of her premature birth, and I loved her like she was my own child, and now it is as if she is dead to me for I’ll never see her again.’
Joy’s eyes were very bright and tears were pouring down Enid’s face as she said, ‘My poor dear, how you’ve suffered. Go into the kitchen and rest yourself.’
‘Oh, but …’
‘I insist,’ Enid said. ‘Joy and I will finish up here.’
‘When Mom speaks in a certain way it is far better to do as you are told, I’ve found,’ Stephen said with a faint smile at Meg.
‘Better go then,’ Meg said in as light a manner as she could manage. And she followed him into the kitchen. When they were sitting either side of the range she said, ‘I feel a bit of a fraud because I’m not the only one has had bad things happen to her. Look at your aunt. What became of her in the end?’
‘Oh, she got over it,’ Stephen said. ‘As much as anyone can ever get over something as traumatic as that. She has always loved me but has nothing to do with other children generally. I would stay with her in the holidays sometimes.’ He grinned as he went on, ‘She let me get away with murder and would spoil me rotten. I worried as much about her reaction to me enlisting in the army as I did Mom and Dad’s.’
Meg nodded. ‘I think your mom will really miss you when you go back.’
‘I know, but Mom and Dad are not going to be the only parents missing their son, and to win this war everyone must be prepared to make sacrifices.’
Enid mentioned the things Meg had told her to Will later that evening as they got ready for bed.
‘She certainly seems to have been dealt a bad fist all right,’ Will said.
‘I’m really taken with her, Will. I mean, I like both girls but with Meg … Oh, I don’t know, she is so young and looks sort of lost. She needs mothering.’
‘Now, Enid.’
‘Don’t you “Now Enid” me,’ Enid said crossly. ‘That girl has been a little mother to her brothers and sisters since their mother died when she was only fourteen. Seems to me somewhere along the way her needs have been forgotten. Today I felt like giving her a damn good hug. Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t,’ she reassured her husband, seeing the look on his face. ‘Stephen did, though.’
‘Stephen put his arm around her?’
‘Yes, and I couldn’t blame him. Will, she is like the daughter I never had.’
‘No, she’s not, Enid,’ Will said firmly. ‘She has a family of her own.’
‘Huh, not much of a one,’ Enid said. ‘There’s no mother, a father who – reading between the lines – is more eager to please his wife than tend to his children. And as for her brothers and sisters, the only one that could have been a help to her, Terry, the eldest boy, left home virtually as soon as he left school. I mean, what child leaves their home at fourteen, unless something is very wrong?’
‘So what do you want?’ Will asked perplexed. ‘She’s here now and not at home.’
‘I know and I want her to stay here.’
‘What?’
‘As one of our land girls,’ Enid said. ‘They said we’ll be assigned at least two, so why can’t we have these two?’
‘I don’t know if you can pick and choose like that.’
‘Well, you won’t know unless you ask,’ Enid pointed out. ‘And you’d better check that’s all right with the girls, too, that they’d like to stay here.’
Will still looked doubtful and Enid cried, ‘What’s the matter with you? You know as well as I do that many farmers only agreed to have land girls on sufferance, and others are so mean they wouldn’t give you the skin off their rice pudding.’
Will smirked at the picture this conjured up and Enid snapped, ‘This is no laughing matter, Will. The girls could end up at some ungodly place where they are not treated right or even fed properly, and they need good food if they are supposed to work as hard as men.’
‘All right,’ Will said. ‘I will ask if we can have the girls working this farm and they may as well live in; after all, we have the room and I’ll need them every day early for the milking.’
‘How will we get word to them at the hostel place?’
‘We won’t,’ Will said. ‘Provided it doesn’t rain tonight – and there’s none forecast – I should be able to get Dobbin up the lane tomorrow after the milking. I’ve got to try and get Stephen to his hospital appointment then anyway, and the girls will have to pick up their things and the rest of their uniform, and I need to go to Penkridge to get the accumulator charged. Times are too dicey now to be without a wireless.’
Both girls wanted to stay on at the farm if they could, but the following morning Joy said, ‘We’re both all for stopping on here and I’d like to get it all sorted as soon as possible, but do you think we will get to Penkridge today? The lane was still very muddy when we brought the cows in.’
‘Yes,’ Meg said, ‘they were slipping all over the place.’
‘Well, we will have to try it sometime,’ Will said. ‘Anyway, I’m going to load the churns on the cart as soon as we’re done here and see if Dobbin can manage to pull them to the head of the lane. I hope he can because, especially in these austere times, I don’t like throwing good milk away.’
Meg knew what Will meant. Glasses of milk had been pressed on the girls the previous day and, though Meg hadn’t been that keen on milk before, she had an idea that she might develop quite a taste for milk that had just been taken from the cow.
Eventually the cows were milked and Will took them back to their marshy field while the girls cleaned out the byre. And when they were finished and crossing the yard ready to go back to the farmhouse for a welcome breakfast, it was to see Dobbin trying to pull the cart loaded with milk churns. Will was coaxing and encouraging him to walk upon duckboards that he had laid over the glutinous brown sludge at the bottom of the lane. The horse wasn’t too happy about it, but Will was incredibly patient, and eventually the horse put his front hoofs on the board and Joy and Meg gave a little cheer, and this encouraged the horse to move further forward.
‘He’ll be all right now,’ Will said. ‘Go in and get your breakfast and tell Enid I’ll be in shortly.’
The girls nodded, but removed their mucky wellingtons in the back porch and washed in the scullery before they went in and gave Enid Will’s message. Stephen was already at the table and Meg smiled at him as she sat down. He really was nice, she decided, and he had been lovely to her the previous day. It reminded her of the talks she used to have with Terry, though she was always mindful that he was younger than she and she had tried to shield him a little.
‘Hungry?’ Stephen asked, and Meg nodded vigorously because she always seemed to be hungry.
‘I’ll say she is,’ Joy said. ‘And I can tell you that for nothing, because her stomach has been grumbling for the last half-hour.’
It was true as well. Enid laughed as she ladled porridge into their bowls as Meg retorted, ‘I can’t take responsibility for my stomach – and anyway, I bet you are just as hungry as me.’
‘’Course I am,’ Joy said. ‘I just make less noise about it.’
‘Now, now, girls,’ Enid chided, though she was smiling at their banter. ‘Leave your mouths for eating, not arguing.’
It was easy to do as Enid said because she made the most delicious porridge, and for a while there was silence. Then Will was at the door saying that Dobbin struggled to get by in parts of the lane, but he had made it. ‘What he can do once he can do again,’ said Will. ‘Anyway, I have left him chomping on hay and looking dead pleased with himself.’
‘So we will get to the hostel this morning?’ Meg said.
‘I’d say so,’ Will said. ‘But apart from Stephen, who gets to ride, we’ll have to walk to the head of the lane because I shan’t expect old Dobbin to pull us until we get to the metalled road.’ And then he added with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Especially you two, who have us eaten out of house and home since you came. Dare say you will be a darn sight heavier going back than you were when you arrived.’
Meg remembered that she had sweetened her bowl of porridge with three teaspoonful of sugar before adding creamy milk from the jug, and now she was on her second piece of homemade bread. She flushed, wondering if she had been greedy.
Will saw the flush and Meg’s discomfort and let out a bellow of laughter. ‘I’m joshing you, Meg,’ he said. ‘No one works well on an empty stomach, and farms do better in terms of fresh wholesome food than those in cities and towns, so you can eat your fill of whatever we have.’
It was so warm and friendly here, and Meg felt a rush of affection for these people that until two days ago had been strangers to her. She could see that Joy felt the same and she was about to make some reply when Will said to Enid, ‘Put the wireless on. There will be enough life in that accumulator to hear the eight o’clock news, I should think.’
There was, and they listened to the sound of Big Ben booming out the hour and then the newscaster’s voice announcing the news at eight o’clock on 1 September 1939. The very first thing he said was that Hitler’s armies had invaded Poland at dawn that morning. Meg didn’t really understand the slightly panicky look that passed between Enid and Will, because though she imagined it was a blow that Germany had invaded Poland, it was only what had happened already to a place with a really long name – Czechoslovakia, yes, that was it. It had happened in Austria too, but her father had said that that didn’t count because Hitler had been Austrian.
‘Only to be expected,’ Will said. ‘He’s been amassing troops on the border for a week or more. He wasn’t doing that for nothing.’
‘Why does it matter to us?’ Joy asked.
‘Because we have an alliance with Poland,’ Stephen told her, ‘saying we will go to Poland’s aid if they are attacked.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of an important port in Poland that we don’t want to fall into German hands,’ Stephen said.
‘Yes, but how can we protect Poland even if we wanted to and promised and everything?’ Meg persisted. ‘’Cos it’s miles away … isn’t it? she asked uncertainly, because she had only a sketchy idea of geography.
‘It’s a fair distance,’ Will answered. ‘And I think the only thing to do for Poland is for us to declare war on Germany.’
‘Oh golly!’ Joy exclaimed. ‘When d’you think this will happen?’
‘Anytime soon,’ Stephen said sombrely, and suddenly the heat seemed to have been sucked out of the day.
‘Ssh now,’ said Will. ‘Let’s hear the rest.’
They listened to the announcer telling them of the towns and cities all over Great Britain, where children were being assembled in school halls and playgrounds. They had gas masks that were purported to look like Mickey Mouse in boxes slung around their necks, and they were burdened with small suitcases, or even a carrier bag with a change of clothes and other sundries in.
And as they were marched to railway stations to be dispatched all over the country to ‘places of safety’ Meg knew neither the bewildered, tearful children nor the weeping mothers had any idea where these places of safety were.
Among those children were Jenny, Sally and Billy Hallett. They had a gas mask each around their neck, a coat over one arm and held a large carrier bag in the other hand. Billy’s carrier held two vests, two pairs of pants, a pair of trousers, two pairs of socks, six handkerchiefs and a pullover, and the girls had two vests, two pairs of knickers, a petticoat, two pair of stockings, six handkerchiefs, a skirt, a blouse and a cardigan. In addition they each had a comb, towel, soap, flannel, toothbrush, and a pair of wellington boots.
Some parents put in a comic or two, or sandwiches and biscuits, some barley sugar in case they felt sick, and a piece of fruit, such as an apple. But the Halletts had just the bare essentials. They were also the only ones with no one to see them off, shed tears over them and say how much they would miss them.
Charlie had hugged and kissed them before he went to work that morning and said that he would miss them sorely and he hoped they wouldn’t have to be away from their homes for too long. Billy and Sally had cried all over him but Jenny had stayed dry-eyed. She knew her father probably assumed Doris would see them off, but she had no intention of doing that and when the time came she had packed them off as if they were just going to school.
In fact, it was a relief to Doris to see the back of the children for Frank Zimmerman was making heavy demands on her, and though he wasn’t a man to say no to – and Doris didn’t dare – she did say that it was difficult to carry drugs all over the city when she had the children in the house. She also said she couldn’t ‘entertain’ his friends in the evening the way she used to because of Charlie. He had smacked Doris about a bit when she said that. She was scared and nervous and it had made her temper shorter than ever and the children had borne the brunt of that . .