Wartime Sweethearts (37 page)

Her father, Stan Sweet, gave her the thumbs-up sign. Mrs Hicks smiled benignly before whispering something into Stan’s ear.

Ruby glowed at the praise, returning to her subject feeling far more confident than she had before.

‘We shall begin with advice on fuel saving. Please take one of the small leaflets with you on the way out. It covers all sorts of fuel sources that many of you may use in your cooking; electric, gas and coal-fired ranges – I know a lot of you have the latter.

‘Note the advice in the leaflet regarding saucepans. A clean unpolished bottom absorbs heat more effectively so food is cooked more quickly. Also note the advice about always using a saucepan lid for exactly the same reason. If you don’t have a lid, use a plate. And if you can steam a pudding or something on top your vegetables, do so. Steamers are very fuel efficient.’

A hand shot up. Ruby recognised Mrs Martin, the farmer’s wife, whose joints of beef were celebrated and usually too big to put in a normal oven.

‘I don’t have a steamer.’

‘Then use a colander,’ answered Ruby. ‘Just place it on top of the saucepan with whatever you want to put in it. The steam from the cooking vegetables beneath it will do the rest. Oh, and never put a small saucepan on a large gas ring; that too is a waste of heat.’

The crowd murmured approvingly. Ruby allowed her shoulders to relax. The first hurdle had been crossed. Now it was time for a demonstration and discussion centred around the Sunday joint.

The brisket, meat nicely cooked and fat glistening, was still in its roasting tin, an island in the middle of congealed fat.

Ruby went on to discuss getting a decent-size joint, enough to meet everyone’s ration.

‘Roast meat for Sunday with vegetables. Scrape the fat off from around the joint before making gravy and place in a bowl. The fat will be used for cooking other things. You may need it in future to make pastry, seeing as the usual fats are in short supply. Use some of the dripping jelly left for the gravy, the rest for supper that night scraped on to bread and sprinkled with salt.’

‘Lovely,’ somebody shouted. ‘I do love a bit of beef dripping.’

‘Once that’s done, add water to what’s left in the roasting tin, mix well and empty into a saucepan. It’ll make a good stock for soup. Oh, but one word of warning: don’t add vegetables to the stock pot as they tend to go sour if you leave your soup or stew for a week. And if you can, let your gravy cool before adding it to shepherd’s pie and other dishes. It thickens and goes further that way.’

They went on to discuss other options for both the dripping jelly and the fat left in the bowl, but making meals from the meat was the task they focused on.

‘Cold on Monday with bubble and squeak – in other words any leftover vegetables you have to hand. Tuesday, minced to make cottage pie, topped with potatoes, Wednesday, if you’ve still got some left, cut into pieces to make Cornish pasties or a stew. If there are any bones, remember to remove these before cooking; after all, we don’t want to waste heat cooking bones. Not that we’re discarding those bones. Like the juices from the tin, they’ll make a good stock base for a soup. Oh, and if you want to “fill out” any of these dishes, add oatmeal. It’s cheap and relatively plentiful.’

‘So what about Thursday, Friday and Saturday?’ Mrs Martin again.

Ruby grinned. ‘Well, those meals depend on whether Joe Long has bagged a few rabbits.’

A great hoot of laughter went up from some, and a more muted response from others. Sam Pickard could be relied upon to shoot fresh game when it was available. Only time would tell if there was enough to go round.

Everyone agreed that the event went well. There was a rush at the end to grab leaflets but also to ask about recipes, plus advice from those who knew all about managing on a budget.

‘We’d beat that bloke Hitler hands down if it was all down to us making a meal from a turnip and a rabbit’s leg,’ chortled a farm labourer’s wife. ‘Been living like that for bleedin’ years!’

One of Mrs Hicks’s friends was Mrs Darwin-Kemp, the woman whose husband had connections in London. She came up to Ruby, smiling in a very smug manner.

‘Congratulations, my dear,’ she said, her smile smothered behind the stiff net veil at the front of her hat. ‘I knew you could do it.’

Mary overheard and knew immediately that Mrs Darwin-Kemp had had a hand in their appointment. ‘Might I ask how you knew?’

‘Your young cousin who came over with the sliced bread insisted you were excellent cooks.’

So. It was down to young Frances.

‘You’re both very skilful,’ she said, her gaze alighting on one twin then the other. ‘If you should ever be in need of a domestic appointment, I would be willing to employ you. I so appreciate a good cook.’

‘Thank you but I don’t think so,’ said Ruby, her smile barely hiding a grimace.

‘We have family,’ added Mary.

If she did hear, she ignored the remark turning her attention instead to Mrs Hicks. ‘You’re lucky to have them so close by, Bettina. I dare say you won’t starve.’

‘Of course I won’t,’ Bettina snapped. ‘I can cook! Not like you, Agatha. Waited on hand, foot and finger all your life.’

Mrs Darwin-Kemp laughed as though Mrs Hicks had cracked a particularly silly joke. Mary concluded that she didn’t really know what Mrs Hicks was getting at, or if she did, didn’t really care.

Bettina’s attention was interrupted by Isaac who came to tell her that a telegram had arrived for Mrs Hicks. After reading it, she looked across at Mary.

‘It’s from Michael’s commanding officer. I’m afraid there’s a problem.’

Frances wrote to her cousins about Ada Perkins, her friends and what she was up to. She also wrote about the apple orchard she had found which also had pears, plums and cherries in it.

‘Not so big as my orchard,’ she wrote loftily, as though the orchard next door to the pub was hers and hers alone.

She thought about mentioning the feast that had disappeared that night in the forest, but decided not to. All the other kids had their own suspicions as to where it had gone, and for a while she’d been chief suspect, after all she was the one who’d been left to count to fifty and could easily have eaten it while the others were hiding.

On returning from hiding and told their feast had vanished, this had not gone down well with her friends. Deacon demanded proof that she hadn’t ate it.

‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ said Frances, crossing her heart and closing her eyes to show she really meant it.

‘That’s not proof. Anybody can say that,’ declared Ralph, and of course he was right.

Deacon leered right into her face. ‘Open your mouth.’

‘What?’

‘Open your mouth!’

The others held her while Deacon prised her jaw open and peered in. He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

‘She might already have swallowed it,’ said Evan.

Deacon frowned. ‘There’s only one thing left to do. If she’s ate it she’ll taste of it. There’ll be grease and everythin’ around her mouth.’

The others sucked in their breath, awestruck by Deacon’s deduction and knowing beyond doubt there was only one sure way to tell if she had ate it; Deacon had to taste her.

His mouth sucked on hers so hard that her lips were drawn into his mouth.

‘Yak!’ he exclaimed when he finally withdrew, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Nothing. Just jam.’

‘P’raps it was a dog,’ offered Ralph while wiping his nose with his coat sleeve.

‘Or a wolf!’ Gertie exclaimed, her round eyes looking this way and that just in case the creature was still around and still hungry.

Merlyn merely looked up at the treetops, as though the answer might be floating around up there somewhere.

Frances shook off the hands that had held her. ‘Don’t be so stupid. There are no wolves in this forest – are there?’

She looked round for confirmation because she didn’t herself know for sure.

Evan, Deacon and the rest of her school friends all exchanged shrugs and dumb looks. Nobody knew, though she could tell by the look in their eyes that the prospect excited them.

She decided that her new friends weren’t nearly so knowledgeable as her friends back in Oldland Common. It seemed it was time for her to take charge of matters.

‘Are there any tracks?’

‘What do you mean, tracks?’ It was Deacon who asked.

‘Like in cowboy and Indian films. They track the bandits by following their footprints. Are there any footprints?’

Wary eyes studied the area around the fire where the crime had taken place. And it was a crime. Whoever had stolen their supper was a thief and deserved to be punished.

The ground around the fire was soft and there was no foliage to hide the footprints.

‘That is not wolves’ paw prints,’ stated Frances. The gleam of triumph shining in her eyes, she pointed at what could only be the impressions of a pair of hob-nailed boots. ‘Wolves don’t wear boots!’

Everyone looked down at the footprints then at their own feet. Evan was wearing a pair of scuffed brown boots, hand-me-downs from his brother and still too big for him. His boots were the biggest but still no match for the footprints.

Everyone scrutinised everyone else’s boots, Frances, still their chief suspect, most of all. She was wearing wellington boots over a pair of hand-knitted socks. Like everyone else her feet were too small to have made the footprints.

Satisfied that none of them were the culprits, Deacon took charge again and suggested they followed the footprints.

‘Just like the Indians,’ he added in an attempt to make it sound as though the suggestion had been his in the first place.

Frances was happy to let him.

Twenty yards later the foliage hid the soft earth from view. The search party, keen to hunt down the real thief came to a dead end, feeling quite disappointed.

Deacon flicked his hand over the tops of the bushes so that they whipped backwards and forwards. Everyone could see he was exasperated, though none dare challenge him and say so. He was gang leader after all.

Even though most of them were not yet in full bloom, the bushes carried enough leaves to hide the ground.

‘Damn his eyes,’ snarled Deacon the words reflecting the fact that he was very keen on anything to do with pirates and had picked up a few of their phrases.

‘He’s got away. The bastard’s got away,’ added Ralph. He’d picked up his damning phrases from his father mainly on his return from the pub and filled to the gills with cider.

Frances frowned as she regarded the bushes. There were so many directions the thief could have gone in.

‘I’m hungry,’ whined Gertie, who was digging her knuckles into her tired eyes and yawning.

Merlyn was humming softly to herself while stuffing a piece of paper into a hole in an oak tree.

‘It’s a prayer to the earth mother,’ she said.

Frances jerked her chin as though she knew that, when actually she didn’t. Anyway, it was what would happen next that she was interested in.

‘So what do we do? Call the police?’ Deacon asked wryly.

Frances shook her head. ‘Of course not. They wouldn’t do anything. We’re just kids and they’d tell us to shove off home to our parents. What we have to do is to set a trap.’

‘What sort of trap?’ asked Evan.

‘Something tasty. Another rabbit perhaps or a pigeon. Anything that sizzles over a hot fire. Anything we can get hold of. When the thief smells it and shows himself we’ll jump on him. Right?’

Everyone agreed except Deacon. ‘How do we know he’s still around here? Whoever it was might already have gone home.’

They all thought about it.

‘Well, if nobody takes it this time, we can eat it all ourselves,’ suggested Evan.

It was agreed. Frances felt proud of herself. Not only had she integrated well with her new friends in the Forest of Dean, she’d also proved she could lead them when they were unsure what to do next. She liked that.

Two nights later, after eating their tea and promising to be home before dark, they gathered at ‘their place’, the gang’s forest headquarters where the trees drooped over the narrow gorge and the wind swooped overhead; a nice sheltered spot.

Deacon had already got the fire going by the time everyone else arrived.

Ralph arrived with his offering for the feast, a fresh trout plus what looked like a pot full of wriggly worms.

Frances took one look and gagged. ‘Yuk! He won’t come out and steal a pan of worms!’

Ralph sniggered and everyone else joined in. Frances felt like an outsider again because her friends knew something she didn’t.

‘Elvers,’ said Ralph. ‘Baby eels. Only get them this time of year. What you do is boil ’em up, then fry ’em off in a bit of butter or dripping. Me mam didn’t ’ave any butter, so I nicked some dripping.’

He held up a brown paper bag, the top screwed round and round so the dripping wouldn’t leak out.

Evan had brought a dead and rather squashed pheasant.

He grinned broadly. ‘Me dad ran over it in the tractor. I scooped it up before he noticed.’

‘It ain’t bin hung. It’ll be too tough to eat,’ remarked Deacon.

‘Might not be seeing as it bin squashed,’ said Evan.

‘It’ll still smell all right,’ Frances added.

The fish was skewered on to the stick and the handle of the pan containing the elvers was slid along too.

The pheasant had to be plucked and drawn, the job being willed to Ralph who didn’t seem to notice the smell of the bird’s innards as he pulled it out like so much slimy string. He also seemed oblivious to the plucked feathers left clinging to his sticky hands, fluttering upwards and settling in his hair.

It took a while but eventually the aroma of food cooking in the great outdoors was rising upwards. So was the steam from the elvers.

Frances heard her stomach rumbling. Nothing, she decided, smelled as good as food cooking out in the fresh air.

They all began smacking their lips.

‘Might as well eat the elvers ourselves,’ suggested Ralph. The others agreed. Soon he was scooping them into a rusty old frying pan he’d also stolen from home.

‘It won’t be missed. Me mam only uses it for cooking up potato rinds and mash for the chickens,’ he declared.