Authors: Anne Bennett
‘I think this is more important than a day off,’ said Meg, and she looked across at Joy.
‘Me too,’ Joy said, and they heard Will’s slight sigh of relief.
‘Put on your uniforms and your wellingtons then,’ he said. ‘You’ll need them.’
The very first thing to do, though, Meg thought, surveying the field a little later, was to clear it of rubbish, because it was the place where unused or broken machinery and other assorted items had been dumped.
‘What do we do with all of this?’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Will said. ‘Load it on to the cart. Penkridge is collecting scrap metal. Tomorrow, when I go to Penkridge to get rid of it, I’ll try and get hold of some gloves because, when we have the rubbish collected, we must start on clearing out the ditches. These fields are liable to floods and, as they haven’t been attended to for years, a lot of muck will probably have to be pulled up by hand. I doubt the billhooks and hoes will be strong enough.’
‘Don’t fancy clearing those fields without some protection on my hands either,’ Joy said. ‘Some of those grasses are as tall as me.’
‘It isn’t the grasses that bother me,’ Meg said. ‘It’s the thistles and brambles that would rip our hands to ribbons, not to mention the stinging nettles – they would be very painful.’
‘I’ll see to it tomorrow,’ Will said. ‘But we might have to manage today, so shall we make a start?’
It took them all morning to clear the field of every bit of scrap metal, and then after a wonderful dinner they returned to tackle the ditches. It was stinking work, and muddy and unpleasant, for the ditches were full of putrid-smelling stagnant water, but they laboured on, hauling and yanking on stubborn undergrowth that virtually covered the ditches and on which the billhooks were making little impression. They also had to plunge their hands into the scummy water to clear away the slimy roots and rotting foliage that were effectively clogging them.
But though the work was nasty, Meg knew how essential it was, and she was loath to stop for the milking; but as hard as they all had worked, they had been able to clear only a little. The field was a very large one and blocked ditches ran all along it.
Enid exclaimed at the state of their hands when they went into the farmhouse, for they were red-raw and covered in sores and scratches, some of them quite deep; their nails were broken and blackened. The warm water Enid poured into the basin for them to wash before milking was soothing, but Will felt guilty when he saw how sore the girls’ hands were and marvelled that they had not complained.
‘Maybe we should have left starting on that field till we got some gloves for you,’ he said.
‘We couldn’t have done that,’ Meg said. ‘As it is we will be lucky to get it done in time. Don’t worry, Will, we’ll live.’
‘Well, you might live,’ Enid said, ‘but if your hands are too sore tomorrow, then you will not be able to get so much work done, so, the pair of you, rub some goose grease into them before you go to bed tonight.’
They promised to do that, but later Meg – sitting astride a three-legged stool with her forehead resting on the velvet sides of the cow, and listening to the hiss of the milk into the bucket – thought of her cousin Nicholas and wondered if he would be available to help them for a few days. No harm in writing to ask him.
When they had finished the milking and were eating the evening meal, Enid said, ‘Why don’t you stick at working at the ditches while you have the light and let me do the milking for the next few days?’
‘Are you up to that?’ Will said. ‘I mean, you will have to fetch in the cows, milk them all by hand and then clean out the byre.’
‘I know the work to be done, Will,’ Enid said. ‘Don’t forget I was a farmer’s daughter and had to do that and more when I was but a child.’
‘But you are not a child any more.’
‘I’m aware of that, but I’m not yet in my dotage,’ she said firmly.
‘All right,’ Will said reluctantly. ‘But you are not to lift the churns. Just leave them outside the byre and I’ll deal with them. Just at the moment, it is the most tremendous help not to have to milk the cows.’
‘It will give you more time,’ Enid said. ‘And with the blackout and all, what light we have is really important.’
‘We need an extra pair of hands,’ said Meg, ‘and it came to me in the cowshed who that could be. Tonight, I’ll write to my cousin Nicholas. As I said, he’s living in Rugeley at the moment, so I’ll ask if he has any free time to help us.’
‘Maybe he has a job?’
Meg shook her head. ‘Pretty certain he won’t be working,’ she said. ‘He was at grammar school when his mother whisked him away, and he most probably will be doing nothing.’
‘What age is he?’
‘He’s sixteen, the same age as me, but obviously taller and stronger. He could be a great help to us here.’
‘He could that,’ Will said in agreement. ‘Well, you get your letter written, Meg, and when I go to into Penkridge to dispose of the metal early tomorrow morning, I’ll post it for you.’
Will set off the following morning. When the girls surveyed the day, Joy said that – even allowing for the time of year – the sky seemed very overcast, with thick, low-hung clouds appearing to promise rain.
‘Shall we take our mackintoshes?’
Meg made a face. ‘It will be hard to work wearing them.’
‘But harder to be without them if the rain comes down in sheets,’ Joy countered.
And so, after helping themselves to porridge, as Enid was dealing with the cows, the girls set out with their wellies and mackintoshes into the dawn. They hadn’t yet reached the field when an icy drizzle began to fall.
‘Oh, great,’ Joy said.
‘It’s only rain.’
‘I know, but how d’you think the mud will react to even more rain?’ Joy said. ‘We might both be spreading our lengths on the ground before we’re much older.’
Joy wasn’t far wrong. The two girls slithered through the mud to the ditches that ran the length of the field. They found it even harder work with the relentless, icy spears of rain attacking them as well, but they soldiered on. They had no idea of the time, but they could have blessed Enid when they saw her coming towards them. She was dressed in oilskins and thick-soled wellington boots, and either side of her were the two very damp and excitable collies, but, more importantly, she was carrying a tray.
By that time the girls were drenched through. Water had begun to seep through the thin mackintosh material and the mud had settled into glutinous sludge where they stood. So, with difficulty, the mud sucking at their boots, they moved to the partial shelter of a nearby tree and Enid presented them with a Thermos flask each filled with homemade broth. Meg had heard about such flasks. She knew they were supposed to keep hot things hot and cold things cold, but they were costly and until now she didn’t know anyone who had one. She was immensely glad of the broth; the flask had lived up to its claim as the broth had been piping hot and it put new heart into the pair of them. Meg was intrigued as to how the Thermos worked.
‘Will says it’s because there is a vacuum between the inner and outer walls,’ Enid said. ‘When you look into an empty flask, that is not the wall of it, but a sort of liner made from glass, and so when you pour hot liquids in they are kept warm because the vacuum between the walls stops the heat or cold escaping quickly.’
‘Aren’t they very expensive?’
‘Probably, in the normal way of things,’ Enid said. ‘But Will got these from the shop in Penkridge we buy our animal feedstuffs from. The owner was sent a job lot of these from America a couple of years before the war. He sold them to regular customers at a reasonable price, so Will bought a couple.’
‘Well, whatever they cost they were cheap at the price,’ Joy said. ‘That hot broth has saved my life.’
‘Any sign of Will yet?’ Meg asked.
‘No,’ Enid said. ‘And I’m surprised he’s taking so long. I know he was anxious to get back to help you both.’
‘Bet he can’t find any suitable gloves,’ Joy said. ‘Gloves are not considered essential for the nation’s survival.’
‘What about my hands’ survival?’ Meg laughed.
‘What about them?’ Joy said. ‘I reckon, by the end of the war, most women will have hands like ours.’
‘You may be right,’ Enid said. ‘But I suggest you two put plenty of goose grease on them before bed like you did last night. It may help a bit, and in the meantime let’s hope Will has found something to give your hands some sort of protection. Don’t go on too long now either,’ she said, picking up the tray. ‘For in an hour and a half or so I will be dishing up dinner.’
Neither girl was wearing a watch, but they worked on for a while, glad that, while the rain hadn’t actually stopped, it had slowed to a drizzle. Eventually, Joy threw down her billhook.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘My stomach says it must be dinner-time by now.’
Meg laughed, ‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘My stomach is in no better shape.’
As they neared the farmhouse, they realised that Will was home, but they knew he hadn’t been there long, for while the cart had been run into the barn out of the rain, as they passed the stable they could hear the rhythmic strokes of the chamois leather that Will always used to dry the horse. When they walked in, sitting at the kitchen table, as relaxed as though he did it every day of his life, was Nicholas. Meg just stood on the threshold staring at him.
Nicholas laughed. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘How did you get here?’ Meg asked him, astonished, crossing the room towards him.
‘Will brought him,’ Enid said as she stirred something on the range. ‘That’s what took him so long. Said he looked at the address on the envelope of the letter you were sending, and decided to deliver it in person and see if Nicholas was free to come now rather than later.’
‘And, as you see, I was,’ Nicholas said.
‘Do you mind coming to help?’
‘Mind? I’d say not,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was pleased because I was bored out of my brain, if you want the truth.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘See,’ Meg said to Joy and Enid, smiling. ‘What about school?’
‘Not a chance about school,’ Nicholas said. ‘I should safely say my schooldays are over.’
‘I can’t see Aunt Susan agreeing to that.’
‘She’s had to,’ Nicholas said. ‘Oh, she had this bright idea of getting me into King Edward’s Grammar School in Lichfield to do my Highers, but they have already had another evacuated school merge with them, so they are chock-a-block.’
‘Were you upset about that?’ Joy asked.
‘No,’ Nicholas replied. ‘I was delighted because it meant I didn’t have to tell my mother I had no intention of going anyway.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Nicholas said with a shrug. ‘Doesn’t seem that relevant any more. I mean, if we lose this war, then what difference will it make that I have a degree in English and a very good grounding in Latin and Ancient Greek? I think everyone should do their bit, and until today I didn’t know what my bit was. My father was called up just a few days after war was declared and my mother’s answer to it was for us to fly to some obscure auntie living in Rugeley to keep me safe. She even told me that if I made it to university I could defer call-up.’
‘Are you an only son?’ Enid asked quietly.
Nicholas nodded. ‘Only child. I often feel the pressure of that.’
‘I wonder if my son does,’ Enid said. ‘He is an only one too.’
‘But you let him go into the army,’ Nicholas said. ‘Will told me.’
‘There wasn’t any “letting” to it,’ Enid said. ‘In late April they called up young men of twenty and twenty-one. Both Luke and John, the farm hands, were twenty, and Stephen just turned twenty-one. They could have come home after the initial six weeks, but they all chose to stay. When Stephen had an accident at the campsite recently and was run over by an army truck I honestly hoped he had some injury bad enough to keep him away from active service’
She looked at the three young people listening to her and went on, ‘I didn’t pray for this to happen for I thought that totally wrong. But I did hope and I can’t deny that.’
‘No one could blame you for feeling that way’ Meg said gently. ‘It’s natural to want to protect someone you love.’
‘Didn’t do any good anyway did it?’ Enid said. ‘He recovered and went back to it again and seemed glad to be going back.’ She looked Nicholas full in the face as she said, ‘To see your only son walk off to war is hard.’
‘I know it must be,’ Nicholas conceded, ‘but my mother is treating me like some hot-house flower who needs protecting, cosseting, and I can’t wait to get stuck in one way or another, to tell you the truth. But she never seems to want me out of her sight. I feel like I am being suffocated. I can’t join up yet, but that doesn’t mean that I can do nothing else. I had to fight her to let me come here, but fortunately Will is very persuasive, and the fact that Meg is also here made the difference.’
Enid sighed. ‘Well, you are here for a wee while anyway, and after that maybe you should talk to your mother and tell her how you feel,’ she said as she carried a heavy stew pot to the table. ‘But now it’s time to eat, so will you go out to the stables and tell Will to come in? He will have that horse rubbed away if he’s not careful.’
The talk around the table was initially dominated by the work of the farm. For the first time Nicholas realised that if Great Britain couldn’t become more self-sufficient, there would be a real danger of food running out.
‘Oh, I see how important this is now,’ Nicholas said. ‘And why you are called the Land Army.’
‘You’ll understand it better after dinner,’ Meg said. ‘When you see the battle we will have to wage on a field full of brambles, thorns, thistles, stinging nettles, and grass nearly as high as me, and get it ready for planting.’
‘You show me what to do and I will do my best to do it,’ Nicholas promised. ‘It was daft my mother panicking like she did. No bombs have fallen anywhere.’
‘I don’t want to see bombs falling in Birmingham when everyone is in the thick of it. Do you know where the children have been evacuated to?’
‘No one seemed to know.’