Some Sunny Day (24 page)

Rosie shook her head. If she had had any she didn’t think she would have dared to ask them.

‘Very well, then. Good luck, Price. And remember your country is depending on you.’

Rosie looked uncertainly at the details of how she could be contacted, which she had written down on the piece of paper. She owed her aunt nothing – less than nothing she decided fiercely. And she certainly didn’t want her to think that she actually wanted to keep in touch with her. But she couldn’t help thinking about her dad and what he would have wanted. Which was why she was here, standing outside her aunt’s house.

Rosie lifted the knocker. She didn’t have to let her know what she was doing, she certainly didn’t want to have to speak to her. She let the knocker fall back gently and turned to leave. She had got as far as the gate when, on some impulse she didn’t understand, she turned back and ran up to the door, slipping the note with her details and a forwarding address on it through the letter box.

This time as she opened the gate she felt as though her dad was smiling down on her approvingly. 

She had been right. The green pullover did itch, Rosie acknowledged stoically, as she looked surreptitiously around the station, hoping to see someone else wearing the same uniform. She felt conspicuous in it, and very conscious of the looks she was attracting, especially from the RAF group standing a few yards away.

It was only now beginning to dawn on her what she had done: what she had committed herself to, and what she would be losing. She shivered and fought down the uneasy feeling growing in her stomach. She could have let Rob take care of her instead of doing this. He had wanted to. But what if she had and then one day out of the blue she had done something he didn’t like and he had accused her of being like her mother?

‘Hello, there. Are you bound for Reaseheath College as well, by any chance?’ The cheery female voice with its unfamiliar accent had Rosie turning round in relief, at being distracted from her own uncomfortable thoughts.

‘Yes I am,’ she confirmed, smiling at the tall brown-haired girl who was standing in front of her.

‘I’m Mary. Mary Dugdill from Birmingham,’ the other girl introduced herself, extending her hand for Rosie to shake.

‘There’s another eight of us, but the others are looking for somewhere to get a bit of summat to eat.’

‘The buffet’s over that way,’ Rosie told her,
nodding her head in the direction of the station’s buffet bar. ‘But I don’t think they’ll find much.’

‘Not to worry. They’re bound to feed us when we get there. We’re lucky, aren’t we, being billeted to Reaseheath for our training?’

‘Are we?’ Rosie asked.

‘Oh, yes. It’s a real agricultural training college where we’ll have proper training. Oh, here come the others now. Are you on your own?’

‘Yes,’ Rosie confirmed.

‘This is Sheila, Jean, Peggy, Brenda, Audrey, Stella, Joy and Pam,’ Mary introduced the others. ‘And you’re…?’

‘Rosie.’

‘Are you from round here then?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m that hungry me stomach thinks that me throat’s bin cut,’ the girl Mary had introduced as Sheila announced. ‘I told yer we should have brought a jam jar of tea and some sarnies with us, Mary. Nine o’clock this morning we left Birmingham. Got held up behind some goods train that had priority, and then they said they was rerouting us through Liverpool, instead of sending us direct to Crewe. Ruddy war. Here, Pam, get a load of them RAF lads over there. I fancy that handsome one with the dark hair. How far from here is this Reaseheath, Rosie? Do you know?’

‘Not really.’

‘Pity. I was hoping we might meet up with someone with a bit more info on the place, like
how far it is from the nearest military base. We want to be near some chaps, after all, otherwise we might just as well have stayed at home.’

Rosie could feel herself tensing.

‘Oh, give over, do, Sheila,’ Pam cut in firmly. ‘You’ll be giving us all a bad name if you keep going on like that about the bloomin’ military. Just because that Canadian flyboy gave you the eye at the Palais the other week and said as how he could get you some stockings don’t mean you have to go acting like you’ve never seen a lad before. You’d fancy anything wi’ trousers on, you would!’

‘Not anything, I wouldn’t,’ Sheila protested vigorously. ‘He’d have to be handsome and have a bit about him. I’m not throwing meself away on just any lad.’

‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t if I were you neither, Sheila,’ one of the other girls laughed. ‘I mean, any chap would be unlucky to get one of us as a date, smelling of cow muck like we’ll be and wearing them wellies we’ve bin given. The lads will run a mile when they see us coming.’

‘We won’t let them get away, though,’ the pretty blonde-haired girl called Stella chirped up, joining in the fun, ‘and we’ll be able to go after them on our bicycles.’

‘Oh, give over, do, you’re making my belly ache I’m laughing that much,’ Mary protested. ‘Anyway, never mind the cow muck, we’ll still scrub up well. And at least with a bit of luck we’ll be away from them ruddy air-raid sirens.’

A sudden silence seized the small group.

‘I need a wee,’ Sheila announced.

Peggy, who seemed shyer than the others, nudged Mary and whispered something to her once Sheila was out of earshot.

‘You might as well know, Rosie, since it looks like we’ll be training up together, I don’t hold with talking about a person behind their back but, like Peggy here says, it’s best if you do know just in case you was to say something by accident, like. Sheila’s mam and dad, along with her nan and her brother and his girl, were all killed in a direct hit by one of them parachute bombs just before Christmas. Sheila was trapped with them until they managed to get her out. She’s me second cousin, Sheila is, and it affected her bad, so when me and Peggy and the others decided to join the Land Army we persuaded Sheila to come along with us. She don’t like to talk about what happened but it explains her behaviour sometimes.’

Rosie could see that Peggy was giving her an apprehensive look as though afraid that she might have done the wrong thing. Rosie gave her a reassuring smile and cleared her throat.

‘I…I’ve had something similar myself. My…my mother…the house was bombed whilst I was on fire watch, and then my dad…he’s – he was – in the merchant navy…there was a telegram…’

Suddenly she was surrounded by the other girls, each of them reaching out to put a supportive arm
around her, offering her the comfort of sympathetic words and a small hug. Their kindness brought back to her how much she missed the friendship she had shared with Sylvia and especially with Bella. But she mustn’t think about Bella now, not any more, she warned herself fiercely. Bella belonged to a part of her life on which she wanted to close the door for ever. Even so, the other girls, by their friendliness, lifted her spirits in a way she had thought they could never be lifted again.

‘You stick with us, Rosie,’ Mary told her. ‘We’ll all look out for one another and be good pals.’

For the first time in weeks, Rosie gave a genuine smile.

‘Come on, this is it, Crewe.’

It was gone ten o’clock and if she felt tired and hungry she could only imagine how the other girls must feel, Rosie reflected sympathetically as they struggled off the packed train carrying their kitbags.

They had been told that transport to Reaseheath would be waiting for them outside the station and when they eventually managed to fight their way through the crowded station and into the cold night air, Rosie knew that hers wouldn’t be the only heart to sink at the sight of an open lorry.

They weren’t the only group making for the lorry. In all, Rosie reckoned there must be going on for forty young women all lined up to have
their names ticked off a list by an older woman in Land Army uniform.

Eventually everyone’s name had been called and the girls were instructed to get into the waiting lorry.

It was gone midnight when they finally arrived at their billet, freezing cold and cramped, to be given Spam sandwiches and a welcome mug of hot cocoa.

‘Breakfast is seven sharp,’ they were warned before finally making their way to the beds they had been given.

‘I’m that tired I could sleep on a washing line,’ Stella groaned.

‘Me an’ all,’ Sheila agreed. ‘How about you, Rosie?’

‘Me too,’ Rosie answered her. She could feel the small tendrils of a warm sensation beginning to melt the icy despair that had been gripping her. And when she finally closed her eyes, alongside her aching grief for her father and the frightening emptiness his death had left, was the awareness of how pleased she was that she had met the Birmingham girls. They couldn’t take her father’s place – no one could – but somehow she didn’t feel quite so alone as she had done.

‘I can’t believe that we’ve been here for four weeks and that this is our last day,’ Stella puffed to Rosie as the two of them finished swilling out the cowshed after milking. ‘I ’ope when they tell us where we’re being sent after we get our final talking-to this afternoon that we’ll all be going there together, don’t you, Rosie?’

Rosie nodded but didn’t speak. It was hard work pushing the heavy broom she was using to clean the cowshed floor. But then, as they had all discovered over the last month, everything connected with working on the land involved hard work.

In four short weeks they had learned how to stook corn, what to do with a ‘potato pie’, how to hedge and ditch, how to cook up scraps for pigs, how to milk a cow – which was not by pumping its tail up and down, as some of the town-bred girls had initially thought, causing much hilarity – and a dozen more essential farming jobs. In addition to the practical hands-on instruction they had received,
the girls had also had proper lessons as well. Those who could not already do so had even had to learn how to ride a bike, because, once they were allocated to the work areas, bikes might be their main form of transport.

The Land Army divided its recruits into three different groups: forestry; gangers, in which the girls would move
en masse
from farm to farm, doing seasonal work; and dairy, where the girls would, for the most part, be billeted at a specific farm.

‘That ruddy Daisy nearly managed to kick over the bucket after I’d milked her this morning. Taken a real dislike to me, she has,’ Jean grumbled, ‘and I feel the same about her.’

‘Perhaps it’s because of the way you yanked on her tail the first morning we tried to milk the cows,’ Rosie teased her, stopping what she was doing to lean on her brush and survey the glistening milking shed floor with satisfaction.

She hadn’t expected the sense of camaraderie and belonging that had developed between her and the girls from Birmingham, and at first she had tried to keep herself apart from them, not sure in her still shocked and grief-stricken state that she really wanted to make close friends. But Mary had refused to let her shut herself off from them and had persisted in making her part of their group and now Rosie felt as close as though she had grown up with them, because they had talked so easily and openly to her about their lives. She hadn’t been able to be as open with them, though, but
they had seemed to understand and accept that, knowing that she had lost her parents so recently. She had been wary about getting too involved with them for other reasons as well. After all, she had already been let down twice by girls she had thought of as good friends. But when she had tried to retreat into herself, politely excusing herself after their evening meal, for instance, Mary had determinedly insisted that she stay, asking her half jokingly, ‘What’s wrong, don’t you like us, Rosie?’

Of course Rosie had had to deny any such thing, and then somehow or other she had found herself joining in with their conversation and their laughter, so that now she felt completely at home with them.

‘At least they feed us proper here,’ Peggy acknowledged, ‘even if we do have to wait for our breakfast until after milking. Not that I can eat much some days, I get that scared thinking about the war and everything.’

Peggy had a sweet nature but she was inclined to be very fearful, Rosie had noticed.

The girls’ day started at six, when they were woken up to tumble tiredly out of their dormitories and gulp down mugs of hot tea, before making their way to their designated duties.

Rosie had discovered that she didn’t dislike and fear the cows as much as some of the other girls and she had blushed fierily the morning the herdsman had praised what he called ‘her natural rhythm’ when it came to the task of milking.

For a decision taken out of necessity and in her darkest hours, her new life in the Land Army was working out far better than she had ever anticipated. Sometimes, tired out after her day’s work in the fresh air, lying in her bed on the edge of sleep, Rosie allowed herself the comfort of the thought that somehow her father had guided her footsteps and her decision at that dreadful time when she had first learned of his death. She thought about him every day – every hour, if she was honest – but could even talk about him now sometimes as well. She welcomed the change in her circumstances that had enabled her to put the unwanted discoveries of the last year behind her and to go back to being the girl she had been before them. No one here knew about her parents’ marriage or her own birth. They did not know either about her mother’s affair, or her aunt’s hatred of her, and so Rosie was able to pretend to herself that she didn’t know about them either. She felt safe and as happy as it was possible for her to feel here with the other girls, and she had no wish to return to Liverpool – ever. Her only regret was the pain she had caused Rob but she knew that she could not have married him and it was for his own good in the long run.

‘Right, that’s done,’ Peggy announced, giving a heartfelt sigh of relief. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for me dinner and then I suppose we’d better go and get our best bibs and tuckers on ready for our Pass Out. We won’t want to be late,’ she added anxiously.

Their tutors at the college took their responsibilities towards the countryside on which they were about to inflict their pupils very seriously indeed, and the girls had been taught and drilled as thoroughly as though they were indeed part of a fighting unit.

It hadn’t all been hard work, though, Rosie reflected, in the bustle of the shower block a couple of hours later as the girls showered and joked, calling out to one another, their spirits high.

‘Remember when we was sent to work on that potato pie,’ Stella giggled, ‘and Sheila said as how she didn’t understand why we had to have our dinner in the middle of a muddy field.’

Laughter echoed round the showers.

‘Well, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what it was,’ Sheila defended herself good-naturedly.

‘We all certainly know now. Me back was aching for days afterwards, with all that hoeing and bending down,’ another girl grumbled.

Rosie joined in with the general laughter. She hadn’t realised either what the ‘potato pie’ was until one of their teachers had explained that it referred to the farming practice of raking up all the potatoes left from the harvest into a large circular mass that the girls then had to go through, picking out the potatoes that weren’t fit to be eaten and bagging up the others.

‘And so, girls, it only remains for me to say good luck and to caution you, first of all, to remember
not to shirk or complain, no matter how hard the task may seem, for the work you are being asked to do will be making an important contribution to the war effort. And secondly I would ask you all to remember in the days ahead, should you come into contact with one of the working parties of prisoners of war the government has allowed to work on the land, that you are at all times and no matter what, representatives of our country and our fighting men.’

Rosie, tired after her early start, had been about to suppress a yawn when the senior instructor had mentioned the prisoners of war and she felt a prickle of unease run up her spine.

‘Just as we trust that those of our men who are being held prisoner are treated as they should be, so it is imperative that we ourselves behave with courtesy and respect at all times,’ Mrs Eames continued sternly. ‘This is an instruction that has come down from Mr Churchill himself and I trust you will abide by it.’

‘Huh, prisoners of war, is it?’ Sheila announced sharply in the general mêlée after the girls had been formally dismissed. ‘Well, you won’t catch me having owt to do with the likes of them. Not after what Hitler’s bombs did to my family.’

‘We have to think, though, Sheila, of our own boys,’ Peggy, who rarely said anything forceful, spoke up unexpectedly fiercely. ‘I mean, how you would like it if some German girl spoke like that about one of our prisoners of war?’ she demanded, her face going bright red with self-consciousness.

‘Peggy’s right,’ another girl chipped in.

‘We don’t even know that we’re going to be working with any POWs yet,’ Mary reminded them all sensibly. ‘We don’t even know where we’re going to be sent and we won’t find out unless we look sharp and get down to the main office and get our orders.’

‘From what I’ve heard, some of the places you get sent can be really grim – not like it is here with proper dormitories and shower blocks,’ said one girl. ‘I was speaking to one of the other girls and she said a friend of hers got sent down to Cornwall and that she ended up coming home on account of how bad they treated her.’

‘Honestly, that Janet – she’s allus trying to spread bad news.’ Mary shook her head as she and Rosie watched the other girl go to join her own group. ‘If you ask me, how we get on will be up to us. Mind you, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t prefer to be billeted somewhere decent, but given the chance I’d rather that all of us are able to stick together than have to be separated, even if that would mean a better billet.’

‘Me too,’ Rosie agreed, horrified at the thought of being separated from her new friends.

‘You’re one of us now, Rosie,’ Mary told her, giving her a big grin. ‘You see, we’ll even have you talking like us by the time we’re finished.’

Both girls automatically stiffened as they walked outside and heard the sound of a plane’s engine.

‘Don’t panic, it’s one of ours,’ Mary announced
happily, raising her hand to wave to the pilot of the small plane and laughing when he wiggled his wings in response. ‘Come on, we’d better go and find out where we’re going to be sent.’

‘Appleyard, Benson, Dugdill, Ferris, Holmes, Johnson, Long, Nicholls…’

Rosie held her breath as the names of her new friends were called out in alphabetical order, and only released it on a shaky gust of relief when the officer continued firmly ‘…Price and Smith. You are all to report to the warden in charge of the gangers based at Astleigh in Cheshire. Here are your instructions and your travel warrants.’

‘Cheshire. I thought we’d be going a bit further away. We won’t get much of a chance to rest like ’em as are having to go to Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. It would be just our luck that we’ll have to be up for work tomorrow morning.’

‘At least we’re all going to be staying together,’ Mary beamed. ‘Come on; this calls for a celebration.’

‘What on, and don’t you dare say milk?’ Sheila objected feelingly, whilst everyone laughed.

‘I must say I’d rather we hadn’t been assigned to be gangers,’ Rosie confided to Mary later when they were packing their kit ready to be transported to their new billet.

‘Yes. I’d have preferred to be posted full time to one farm as well, but we’ll just have to make the best of it.’

‘I’ve heard that the gangers get all the rotten jobs,’ Sheila put in.

‘Oh, you and what you’ve heard,’ Mary stopped her. ‘I’ve heard that them as is allus listening in on other people’s conversations never hear owt good.’

‘Well, I just hope we’re going somewhere decent where there’s a bit of life going on. Somewhere near one of the military bases,’ Sheila grinned, instantly brightening up at the thought.

‘Here you are, girls.’

They had left Reaseheath after breakfast, and had been driven to their new billet in a Land Army truck.

‘Heard about the bombing raid on Liverpool last night, have you?’ the driver asked as they jumped out. ‘It was pretty bad, by all accounts. Looks like Hitler is warming up for a real blitz this time.’ Rosie shuddered, partly because she was cold and her body was stiff after sitting crushed up with the other girls in the back of the lorry for four hours, but mostly because of what she was remembering. Here in the depths of the country, where the only planes they heard were their own, it should have been hard to imagine the devastation of a major bomb attack, but Rosie found it all too easy and for a moment she was swept back.

‘Come on, Rosie…’

Sheila’s voice broke into the bleakness of her memories. Reaching for her kitbag, Rosie joined
the others, already lining up outside the hostel whilst the warden took their names.

The hostel was a large concrete building, big enough, as they later discovered, to house a hundred girls split into teams of ten.

‘It was a lucky day for us, Rosie, when we met you, with there being nine of us and just the one of you,’ Mary commented.

‘It was lucky for me as well,’ Rosie assured her. She felt as comfortable with her new friends now as she had done with the girls at the shop – more so in some ways. There was no one like Nancy, making digs about her friends or questioning her parentage because none of her new friends knew anything about Liverpool or her past. And where once Rosie would have been proud to claim friendship with her parents’ Italian neighbours, now, because of her mother and Aldo, she wanted to distance herself from everything Italian, especially its people.

Her father had been British through and through and as his daughter so was she, and she
was
his daughter. No one commented on her thick lustrous dark hair other than to say how lucky she was to have such lovely curls. No one ever looked at her and said that she had a look of ‘them Eyeties’, causing her stomach to cramp and unwanted images of Aldo to form inside her head.

In fact, if it wasn’t for the loss of her father, Rosie knew that she would have been as happy as it was possible for a person to be when their
country was at war, and besieged on all sides by its enemy.

By the time the girls had settled into their new quarters – a long dormitory, but thankfully the hostel had proper showers and toilet facilities and a large rectangular recreation room, complete with a table tennis table and a gramophone player – the teams were coming back from their day’s work, some on their bikes, others arriving in lorries.

‘What with being paid only twenty-four shillings and having to hand over eighteen shillings for our bed and board, we won’t have much left if we get caught smoking in the dormitory and the warden fines us for it,’ Mary warned when Sheila cadged a cigarette off her, saying she was going to save it to smoke later.