by Roland Moore
A starling swooped down low in front of her as she ambled along the country lane, a light drizzle adding to the already wet ground and making the leaves of the evergreen hedgerow glisten. Lost in her thoughts about the impending Christmas celebrations, Joyce walked the well-remembered route without really thinking where she was going. She’d done it so many times, it was automatic. She could recite it with her eyes shut: the walk across the road from the station; the town square, the vicarage, the little bridge by the newspaper office leading to the fields beyond. It had been nearly forty minutes since Joyce had seen him off at Helmstead train station and she assumed he’d be well into his journey by now.
The blue sky was fading to grey as evening fell. She rounded a corner and trudged across a muddy path to the stile that would lead her to the back of Pasture Farm. She remembered when she had first made this journey, burdened with suitcases and a complaining Nancy Morrell. What had happened to Nancy? She’d been her first roommate in the Women’s Land Army; a cantankerous sometimes entitled young woman who didn’t enjoy getting her hands dirty. She’d even tried to get Joyce to carry her suitcase from the station. Flaming cheek! Joyce had flatly refused. She smiled to herself at the memory. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. She had seen so many things in her time here, found solace in her new family of Esther, Finch, and the other girls. She had seen great, life-affirming times of friendship. Even through the bad times the resilience of her friends, her surrogate sisters, had helped her pull through, finding her inner strength to face whatever problems came her way.
The grey sky continued to half-heartedly drop its drizzle. Joyce thought the chances of snow this Christmas would be slim. There had been freezing fog in the lead up and some of that still hung around, but there wouldn’t be snow. That would be fine. John would have more chance of getting back in time if there wasn’t any snow on the tracks.
Joyce reached the back door of the farmhouse. She could hear muffled voices from within along with the sound of the radio. She sloughed off her muddy boots on the step like a snake shedding its skin and opened the door to the kitchen, enjoying the warm air as it greeted her.
‘Did he get off all right?’ Esther asked, her hands in the sink, washing some carrots. The stalks and leaves were spilling over the edge of the basin, leaving trails of muddy dirt on the top of the counter.
‘Yes, that’s him gone.’ Joyce sat at the table, pulling off her sock to deal with a small stone that had got lodged inside her boot.
‘Don’t you worry, I’m sure as soon as he’s spent a couple of days with his brother, he’ll be back on that train,’ Esther remarked. ‘And we’ve still got eight days until Christmas day.’
Eight days.
‘Better put the sprouts on to cook soon then.’ Joyce was making the best of the situation and finding her humour. Esther threw a tea towel at her in mock outrage.
‘Flaming cheek!’ Esther let the rebuke land and then added, ‘I’ll have you know they went on last week.’ The women giggled, good-naturedly.
The sky was a bruised purple colour as night fell outside the window, the colour refracted and warped into hallucinogenic patterns via the large raindrops on the pane.
Shortly, Esther and Joyce put on their coats and boots and left the warmth of the kitchen to walk into the village. As they crossed the bridge into Helmstead, Joyce could see the lights of the village hall. The small rectangular building with its corrugated iron roof seemed designed to be too hot in summer and too cold in winter.
‘Is Martin already here?’ Joyce asked as they approached.
‘No, I don’t know where he’s gone,’ Esther replied. ‘He went off mooning after Iris. He’s wasting his time with that one. Thinks he might start courting her. He’s got his hopes up because they’ll be at Shallow Brook Farm together.’
‘While John’s away?’
‘Yes, Martin and Iris are going to take up the slack until he’s back.’
‘Ah it’s going to be quiet at the farm without them both,’ Joyce had reached the door to the village hall where Connie Carter was talking to two American soldiers. From the men’s postures – one holding the door frame, the other primping his hair – Joyce could see they were flirting with her. She could also tell from Connie’s posture that she was having none of it.
‘Why can’t we come to the party?’ One of the soldiers drawled, to the amusement of his friend.
‘I never said you couldn’t come.’ Connie spotted Joyce and Esther and shot them a smile of sufferance. ‘And you boys are welcome to come along, providing you’re both over sixty.’
‘Sixty?’ The American looked bemused.
‘Yes, it’s a party – a meal – for the old folk.’
‘I don’t think I’m that old.’ The soldier smiled before changing tack. ‘But how about I take you out for our own party?’
‘Yeah, sounds good. I’ll just ask my husband,’ Connie grinned. Knowing when they were beaten, the Americans shrugged and walked away. Connie turned to the watching Joyce and Esther.
‘Can’t blame them for trying, can you?’ Connie raised an eyebrow archly, ‘You coming inside then?’
Esther nodded.
‘We thought you could do with some help.’ Joyce unfastened her coat.
‘Henry could, that’s for sure.’
Inside, they found her husband, the Reverend Henry Jameson. The good-looking and earnest young man was struggling to move a trestle table. ‘Where have you been, Connie?’
‘Some people wanted to know if they could come along.’ Connie raised her eyebrow slightly in Joyce’s direction. It was technically true, Joyce supposed. ‘But I don’t think they were quite old enough yet.’
Connie turned her attention to sticking up a piece of bunting that had drooped. Joyce grabbed the other end of the trestle table and they lifted it together. Esther and Connie started to put out chairs. Each year, Lady Hoxley would donate money to a fund run by the church to organise a Christmas meal for the old people of Helmstead. Local business people and good Samaritans would contribute beer, wine and food; a lot of it grown on the fields and houses around Helmstead. A lot of people in the village, from Mrs Gulliver and the other busybodies to the local butcher would pitch in to arrange the meal. Finch had promised them a bag of spuds to help them along.
And the meal wasn’t the only attraction for the old folk in the village. There would be songs at the piano and maybe a little dancing. Sometimes the event happened on Christmas Day itself, but this year it was happening earlier. The lunch was organised by Henry Jameson for anyone who wanted to spend the day with the community. With so many loved ones away overseas, Christmas could be a lonely and sad experience, so this event distracted everyone from their problems for a day. And Henry liked to think he’d gain a few new parishioners at the Sunday Service as a result too.
As Esther, Connie and Joyce helped Henry set up the hall, their conversation turned to who would be at Pasture Farm for Christmas.
‘Connie and I hope to have the day together – after I’ve finished my service and my visits to parishioners.’ Henry placed a beer mat under a wobbly table leg.
‘That means he’ll be home at five in the evening and I’ll have been on my tod all day.’ Connie rolled her eyes to her husband’s amusement.
‘So what about Dolores?’
‘Oh, she’s got nowhere to go, so she’ll be there,’ Esther replied. About twelve years older than the other girls, Dolores O’Malley kept herself to herself. Joyce remembered Connie playing a game over the summer, to try to find out details – any details – about Dolores’s life. Connie would try every trick she knew to get Dolores to divulge even the smallest detail. What colour did she like? What was her home like? Was she courting anyone? But as skilful as Connie was in digging, Dolores proved equally adept at deflecting. She was as closed as a clam in deep water. Joyce felt that Dolores deserved her privacy.
‘At least I don’t think she’s got anywhere to go,’ Esther mused. ‘You never know with
that one.’
‘And that’s the point, innit? We’ll never know.’ Connie laughed.
Joyce stood on a chair to put some more bunting up. The streamers had been cut and assembled from strips of old magazines, giving the bunting a colourful and varied effect.
‘And of course, Martin and Iris will be back with us for the big day,’ Esther volunteered, spooling the bunting up to Joyce. ‘Fred will be back by then too.’
‘We’ll have a good time.’
‘Will we?’ Esther pulled a sceptical face.
‘Yes,’ Joyce grinned. ‘Especially if we persuade Fred to open his carrot whisky.’
‘Joyce Fisher! I never had you down as being naughty.’
‘It’s living with him what’s done it!’
A distant rumble distracted her. It wasn’t thunder. Joyce’s laughter died in her throat as she noticed a flash in the sky which illuminated the glass of the window pane, making the rain drops glisten like pearls for a brief moment. There was another flash and a distant bang, further away. If there wasn’t a war on, Joyce would have marvelled that they might have been shooting stars or some strange firework show.
Esther, Connie and Joyce peered through the window their hands cupped over their eyes to help them see outside. In the sky, a small grey shape moved quickly across the horizon, with two other similarly-sized shapes following. A flash went off to the right of the first object. It was the last stages of a dog fight. Joyce squinted to try to work out whether it was an allied or German plane being chased. The first plane banked round, and Joyce glimpsed the markings. A yellow band around the rear fuselage and a black cross told her all she needed to know. It was a German bomber and it was being gained on by two Spitfires. One of the allied planes reeled off machine gun fire.
Henry came over to watch and they all peered intently, trying to glimpse the action.
Joyce instinctively ducked down slightly from the window. Esther put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The truth was that they were far enough away to be out of danger. The bullets wouldn’t reach the village hall from that distance. But a basic innate need for survival meant that they shied away nonetheless.
Joyce craned her head. At the corner of the window frame, the second Spitfire looped round, cutting off the escape path of the German bomber. The Spitfire fired its guns and there was a flash of fire on the wing of the bomber. It banked sharply away, an erratic movement that told Joyce it wasn’t an evasive manoeuvre but a sign it was out of control. Sure enough the bomber spiralled down and away, with the awful whining sound that signified an imminent crash. Joyce could just about make out a plume of black smoke from the rear of the plane. Fire was gripping the rear section. It disappeared behind some trees several miles away. The Spitfires pursued it over the canopy to check they had completed their task. After a few moments, a smoky mushroom of fire billowed up from behind the trees. Esther looked solemnly at what she had seen.
‘There’s one for our boys.’ But there was no hint of celebration in Esther’s voice. They knew it could have so easily been a loss to the allied side. They both knew that death wasn’t anything to celebrate. Instead this was a grim tallying up of a minor victory in a war that was dragging on above the skies of Helmstead. Another mother would be getting a telegram.
Joyce continued to put up the celebratory bunting; an action that seemed darkly poignant now. But for now, she didn’t think any more about the German plane or what had happened to it.
Twin paths of blackened, smoking grass etched their way into a copse of trees on the edge of Frensham Fields. And there, its nose smashed into an ancient oak tree was the German plane, one of its engines whirring in a death throe of aviation fuel and smoke. The fuselage was already sparking with fire and the fuel caught alight suddenly, sending a dense cloud exploding into the sky like some nightmarish purple and black peony. The men in the cockpit were frantically trying to escape. One of them smashed open the canopy, sending it cascading down the side of the plane. He was up and out, falling over the side onto the singed heather beneath. His partner quickly followed, but being nearer the fuselage, he found his arm engulfed in burning fuel.
The man screamed and fell hard onto the ground. The first man was on his feet, scrambling to his aid, rolling the burning man over and over until the flames subsided. Then he pulled the man away from the wreckage, getting only twenty feet away before he collapsed on his back from the effort.
‘Kapitän?’ The younger man had concern etched on his face, terror in his eyes. His name was Siegfried Weber. He was twenty-two and although this has been his third mission, he had never been to England before.
The older man winced and clutched his right arm. His name was Emory Mayer. He was forty and this had been his eighteenth mission. He had worked as a tailor in England for two years in the 1920s and if sartorial thoughts were foremost in his mind right now, he’d have registered the state of his uniform, which was partially burnt away around the arm, the skin underneath blackened. Siegfried couldn’t tell whether it was from the burn or from dirt from the fuel. He didn’t want to rub it to find out. Instead, he lifted his captain as best as he could and shuffled them both even further away from the plane. It was burning brightly, and Siegfried knew it would be a beacon for anyone trying to find survivors. They had to get away.
Siegfried hoisted Emory’s good arm over his shoulder and walked them across the scrubland, inching slowly away. Every now and then he would risk a look behind him, hoping that the wreckage would be a small dot on the horizon. But the progress was such that he stopped looking behind him, knowing that the continued proximity of the plane would sap his morale and rob him of the impetus to keep going.
The plane exploded in a final, epic fireball, plumes of black smoke reaching fleetingly into the sky before disappearing forever. Siegfried risked a look back, feeling a burst of heat on his face. And then the fire was gone, the hulking remains continuing to spew black smoke into a black sky. He hoped that the explosion had signified the end of the plane acting like a beacon for the enemy.
In the distance, Siegfried could hear dogs barking. They sounded close, but he had no idea how close. How could the search have been coordinated so quickly? Siegfried tried to calm his nerves, taking deep breaths as he hauled his captain along. No, the searchers were probably a long way away and the sound of the dogs had carried in the wind.
Siegfried knew that he couldn’t be certain of any of that. He knew that his life was hanging by a thread. He had to find shelter soon; a place to give medical treatment to his captain. They had to find somewhere safe.
Joyce Fisher stood on the front step of the village hall, staring up at the sky. She thought she’d heard an explosion in the distance, far off in Frensham Fields. But it could have been soldiers on night manoeuvres. Esther came out to join her and they looked out into the night sky together. A chill wind was blowing gently, carrying a faint rainfall and Joyce felt her face getting slightly damp. It was oddly refreshing and she didn’t immediately think about going back inside. Sometimes it was good to feel nature and enjoy a light rain against your face.
‘We should be getting back to the farm,’ Esther commented.
‘I know,’ Joyce replied. She and Dolores would have to be awake by six and out working by half-past. Late nights weren’t something you could keep doing when you were a land girl, not unless you wanted to fall asleep on your shovel.
By the time they got back to Pasture Farm it was nearly ten o’clock. Joyce locked the back door. The light flickered slightly.
‘Probably the rain,’ Esther commented. ‘I keep telling Fred that the junction box gets submerged when there’s too much water.’
Joyce turned out the light and she and Esther trudged up the stairs to the bedrooms. Joyce could hear Dolores murmuring in her sleep and she wished Esther a hushed goodnight and went into her own room.
‘See you in the morning,’ Joyce whispered.
‘I wish it was really the morning. It’s still the middle of the
night when we get up, isn’t it?’ Esther replied. They shared a smile as Joyce closed the door behind her.
She dropped her dress to the floor and carefully folded it over the back of the chair. Walking to the window, Joyce closed the curtains. Outside she could hear the plaintive cries of a fox somewhere in Gorley Wood. She got her washbag and sat on the bed, waiting for the sounds of Esther in the bathroom to fall silent before she ventured out to see if it was free.
Joyce stared at the dressing table. A dog-eared photograph of John was propped next to her rollers and hairbrush. Seeing his face warmed her heart and made her smile. She hoped he was resting and taking it easy and not having too many chores to do for Teddy. But more than that she hoped he would be back soon; back on the train.
She hoped he’d be back in time for Christmas.
Chapter 2
Seven days to Christmas.
It was chilly in the fields with a winter frost covering the ploughed soil as Joyce, Connie, and Iris trudged out to repair a fallen fence; the earth cracking under their feet like frozen chocolate on ice cream. They competed to see who could produce the biggest bloom of cloudy air from their lungs until they all felt dizzy and had to stop. Iris wanted to find out who had the widest stride and started taking huge steps on her way to the field. Connie tried too. Joyce thought this was unfair as her legs were shorter than both the other women, but they joked and cajoled her into having a go.
‘Well, make sure you’re watching!’
‘Go on, Joyce. See if you can beat Iris’s record.’
‘Yes, I managed to get all the way from that furrow to this one.’
‘It was never that far.’ Joyce suspected they were trying to put her off by fibbing. This was psychological warfare. ‘You’d have to be on stilts to do that.’
‘Excuse me. My legs are exactly like stilts.’
‘Hush now, I’ve got to focus.’
Joyce concentrated as the other women watched expectantly. She lifted one foot and pushed it forward as far as it would go before planting it on the ground. At the last minute she realised she’d overstretched, and while Connie and Iris had managed to do the manoeuvre elegantly, Joyce lost her balance and fell over. Connie helped her to her feet, and they walked the remaining distance across the field giggling at the ridiculous competitions they invented. It was a way to pass the time; a way to have fun in these difficult times.