The Land Girls at Christmas

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Yes, worse luck,’ Elsie said without letting the smile fade. ‘Joyce and I are on milking duty at Home Farm.’

  ‘Ugh. What did you two do to deserve that?’ Brenda took a drum of cocoa from a shelf then poured milk from a jug into a small pan which she set on top of the stove.

  ‘Don’t ask me. All I know is we’re due to be washing udders and putting on clamps half an hour from now. Oh, and by the way, take a look at today’s rota – you and Una are listed to take over from us at one o’clock.’ Elsie stood up and reached for her coat and hat, which she set on her head at a jaunty angle. She pulled knitted mittens out of her pocket and put them on. ‘Don’t be late,’ she warned on her way out.

  ‘Just our luck,’ Brenda groaned. ‘Still – at least we don’t have to cycle out there in the dark.’

  At the sound of the word ‘cycle’, Una frowned.

  ‘What’s the matter? Oh, don’t tell me – you don’t have a clue how to ride a bike?’ Quick on the uptake, Brenda grinned broadly.

  ‘I told a fib,’ Una admitted. ‘Anyway, what’s to stop us from going to work on your motor bike?’

  ‘Against the blessed rules, I’m afraid. It’s either push bike or Shanks’s pony. But don’t worry, I can teach you the basics once it gets light.’

  It would be the first of many lessons that Brenda had to teach her, Una was sure. ‘Ta, you’re a pal. How long have you been here, anyway?’

  ‘This is the end of my third week. Before that, I was working behind the counter in Maynard’s butchers in Commercial Street, Northgate.’

  ‘Well, blow me down.’ Una had assumed that Brenda was an old hand at the Land Army game. ‘Were you here when Eunice … did what she did?’

  ‘It happened the day after I arrived – here, in this very kitchen. It was a big shock, I can tell you.’

  Una took in the orderly rows of green and cream canisters on the shelves and the spoons, knives and ladles hanging from hooks above the up-to-date gas stove. ‘And no one knew she was expecting?’

  ‘Not even the baby’s father, if you ask me. Kathleen says Eunice Mason was a shy type who didn’t join in much – she knew her a lot better than I did. Personally, I don’t understand how anyone keeps a thing like that quiet – I’d explode if it was me and I had to keep it under my hat.’

  The mystery and its tragic end kept Una guessing as Brenda served up the cocoa. ‘How did her family take the news?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. As I say, I didn’t have a chance to find out much about her. Why are you so keen to know?’

  ‘I’m sleeping in her bed for a start.’

  ‘You’re not expecting, though?’ Bluntness was evidently Brenda’s trademark.

  Una gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Definitely not.’ In fact, she’d never gone anywhere near that far with a man – not that she would admit this to the worldly-wise Brenda.

  ‘Good. Because I like you, Una Sharpe with an “e”, and I’d be sorry if you had to leave on account of being with child.’

  ‘I like you too.’ Una smiled back then changed the subject. ‘Tell me about Mrs Mostyn. Is she as nasty as that with everyone?’

  Brenda cocked her head to one side. ‘Now that you mention it – yes, she is. They say it’s because she married beneath her and she’s regretted it ever since.’

  ‘Married beneath her?’ There’d been nothing to suggest this. In fact, the Land Army representative had been exceptionally well dressed and spoke as if she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

  ‘She grew up here at Fieldhead House, don’t you know?’ Brenda tipped the end of her nose with her forefinger. ‘It was a private boys’ school before the government requisitioned it as a hostel – no hoi-polloi allowed through the hallowed gates. Edith Mostyn’s father was headmaster here.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Edith has been married to Vince Mostyn for thirty years. They have a grown-up son, Bill. Bill isn’t half bad, actually.’

  Una noted the twinkle in Brenda’s eyes. ‘A bit of a catch?’ she guessed.

  ‘Yes, and not likely to be called up in the near future because he helps his father to mend Ferguson tractors belonging to farmers all over Yorkshire, according to Grace. Mr Churchill needs men like Bill Mostyn to keep things running smoothly on the Home Front.’ Brenda took her empty cup to the tap and rinsed it.

  ‘Grace?’ Una prompted.

  ‘Grace Kershaw. She lives at the Blacksmith’s Arms with her father, but she’s one of us.’

  ‘A Land Girl?’

  Brenda nodded. ‘She’s on the rota to cycle out to Home Farm with us later today. We’ll stop by to pick her up on our way there. Grace is a decent sort. You’ll like her.’

  ‘If I learn to ride a bike before then, I’m sure I will.’ Una wondered if Grace Kershaw was the tall, fair-haired woman she’d seen at the pub door, greeting the RAF man. There was so much to learn in such a short time and she felt briefly overwhelmed.

  ‘You will,’ Brenda assured her brightly. ‘And it’s true what they say – once you learn you never forget.’

  It was all to do with balance. Una looked straight ahead at a row of semi-derelict stables in the yard behind Fieldhead House while Brenda stood astride the back wheel holding onto her saddle.

  ‘Ready?’ Brenda asked as she shoved hard and set Una in motion. ‘Pedal!’ she instructed.

  Una wobbled slowly across the cobbled, leaf-strewn yard. Concentrate. Don’t look down. Press forward and down onto the pedals. ‘Whoa!’ she cried as she leaned like the Tower of Pisa, first this way and then that. She put her foot down just in time to stop herself from toppling to the ground.

  ‘Try again,’ Brenda insisted.

  Una glanced back at the house to see Jean and Kathleen at an upstairs window. The wind whipped her hair from her face and tore straight through her woollen jumper, but as soon as she realized she had an audience she grew determined to get the hang of it. ‘It’s all right, I can manage,’ she told Brenda, who was standing by. She set off by herself, her hands gripping the handlebars, her feet pedalling slowly. So far, so good. She was halfway across the yard, ignoring the raucous call of the rooks circling overhead, eyes fixed firmly on the stable at the far end of the row.

  ‘Use your brakes!’ Brenda yelled as a dog burst out of one of the stables in hot pursuit of a squawking red hen.

  Too late. Una swerved to avoid the dog and sailed straight into the stable. Luckily a heap of old straw provided her with a soft landing. She got up and brushed herself down.

  ‘Try again?’ Brenda enquired from the doorway, the corners of her mouth twitching.

  ‘Yes, stand back – let the dog see the rabbit.’ Una picked up the bike and wheeled it back out. She had straw in her hair and the dust had brought on a fit of sneezing, but she would not give in.

  ‘You stick at a job once you’ve started – I’ll say that for you.’ Brenda cycled behind Una along the road leading to Burnside.

  It had taken most of the morning for Una to master the art of riding a bike but by dinner time she could balance, pedal, change gear and apply the brakes with aplomb. She’d been able to look Jean in the eye as she’d sat opposite her at a long trestle table in what had once been a grand dining room, now pared back to barracks-like efficiency.

  ‘You’ve got straw in your hair,’ Jean had taken pains to point out, her spoon poised over a bowl of beef and vegetable broth.

  ‘Ta for letting me know,’ Una had replied, running a hand through her hair and taking quiet satisfaction in watching bits of straw drift across the table and into Jean’s bowl.

  Now, with her hastily altered coat buttoned tightly across her chest and her hat pulled well down, she braved the wind ahead of Brenda, wobbling every now and then but mostly keeping a steady course until they reached the village.

  ‘Hold on here for a tick,’ Brenda shouted outside the Blacksmith’s Arms. She asked Una to hold her bike while she went to fetch Grace, who came around the side of the forge wheeling
her own bike.

  ‘Tally ho!’ Brenda’s cry got them moving three abreast, past the terraced cottages and taking the left fork in the road when they came to the chapel. ‘Not far now. Home Farm is over the brow of the next hill,’ she told Una.

  ‘I wouldn’t be in any big hurry to get there if I were you,’ Grace warned.

  She was dressed today in worn dungarees and wellingtons, with the same green scarf tied around her head. In spite of this, she somehow managed to look graceful, Una thought. She was nothing like Brenda – in fact, the exact opposite, with her fair colouring and serious face, high cheekbones and clear grey eyes.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Una asked.

  ‘Old Joe Kellett is a hard taskmaster, that’s why. He’ll throw you in at the deep end, you’ll see.’

  ‘He’s one of the worst for taking advantage,’ Brenda agreed. ‘But don’t worry, Grace and I will look after you.’

  Una’s legs ached as they changed into a low gear and pedalled more slowly. The road was bordered by bare hawthorn hedges beyond which lay freshly ploughed, late-autumn fields that had attracted a whirling flock of white gulls.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Grace promised as they crested the brow of the hill and Una took in the new vista. ‘The farm is nestled in that dip to our left.’

  On they rode, buffeted by the wind, until they came to the rough lane leading to Home Farm where they got off and walked, crossing paths with Elsie and Joyce who wheeled their bikes towards them.

  ‘He’s in the kitchen with Frank and Mrs K,’ Joyce reported without bothering to mention the old farmer by name, her cheeks flushed with the effort of the morning’s work.

  ‘What sort of mood is he in?’ Brenda asked.

  ‘The usual,’ Elsie reported. Her breeches and boots were caked in mud, her curls plastered flat to her forehead.

  ‘He’ll have you digging ditches all afternoon, if I know him.’

  ‘Oh no, not again.’ Brenda sighed.

  So Una was prepared as they arrived in the farmyard and leaned their bikes against a cowshed wall. She heard the muffled sound of cows mooing and shuffling through their beds of straw and she got a strong, sweet whiff of them as she, Grace and Brenda headed for the porch at the front of the house.

  ‘About time too,’ was Joe Kellett’s churlish greeting when he opened the door to Grace’s knock.

  Una had a glimpse of a dark kitchen with low beams from which hung two sides of bacon and some large cast-iron cooking pots. A small fire struggled to keep going inside a large fireplace, fed only with a heap of coal slacking that sent blue smoke billowing into the room.

  ‘Shut that door after you.’ Emily’s irritable voice cut through an awkward silence as the old man stuffed his feet into a pair of hobnailed boots. She came forward to make sure he did as he was told, recognized Una and tutted.

  Her husband – a thin, stooping man with a shock of white hair – tutted back at her. Over his blue overalls he wore a threadbare overcoat tied at the waist with string. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘They’ve only gone and sent us their newest recruit,’ Emily muttered. ‘A fat lot of good she’ll be.’

  Joe grunted then shuffled off out of sight.

  ‘Muddy boots!’ Emily croaked after him. ‘I’ve just got Joyce to scrub that floor.’

  Joe came back with a younger version of himself – a skinny man of around thirty whose thick hair was almost black, and whose features were long and pinched, with eyes that were close together and a chin that hadn’t seen a razor since the start of the week.

  ‘Frank here will lend a hand with the digging,’ Joe told his small team of Land Girls. ‘Don’t bother talking to him, though – he’s deaf as a post. That’s right, isn’t it, Grace?’

  Grace nodded while Brenda raised her eyebrows at Una then each of the girls took a spade from Joe and followed him across the yard. Frank stayed behind to put on his boots and took his time to join them at the edge of the ploughed field behind the cowshed.

  ‘I want all these old twigs and weeds pulled out before you start digging,’ Joe instructed. ‘You can pile them up to make a bonfire in that top corner. After that, I want you to dig down two spits from end to end, which is fifty yards, give or take.’

  Una pulled a face. ‘What’s a spit?’ she whispered to Grace.

  ‘A spade’s depth. We’ll never get it all done before dark, with or without Frank’s help.’

  Brenda set to straight away, dragging small branches out of the clogged channel and making a pile for Una to carry up the slope to the corner of the field. All three were hard at work when Frank finally appeared. His father signalled with his hands to show him where to start digging. ‘No slacking,’ he warned the girls as he left them to it.

  Brenda nudged Grace with her elbow and pointed at Frank, who had rammed his spade into the ground and pulled a cigarette from the packet in his shirt pocket the moment his father had gone. ‘It’s not us who’ll be slacking, if the old man did but know it.’

  Grace put a finger to her lips. For as long as she could remember, Frank Kellett had been an odd presence in the village, turning up when least expected – at whist drives in the Village Institute, for example, or at Whit Monday processions from the chapel to the cricket field near the junction. He was always on the edge of things, staring and hovering without saying a word. Some put his eccentric behaviour down to his deafness, others to the suspicion that he wasn’t quite right in the head. Once in a while there were reports that he’d gone missing for a few days, or else had been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of a child’s pet cat or rabbit. No one knew where he went on these silent furloughs or whether the rumours about missing animals were true, but they crystallized over the years and people now preferred to give Frank Kellett a wide berth, whether or not he deserved it.

  He smoked his cigarette and watched Una pick up a bundle of wet branches and carry them up the field while Brenda cleared the ditch and Grace started to dig.

  ‘Oh no, this is all we need,’ Brenda sighed, ankle deep in mud as she held out her hand and felt the first cold spots of rain.

  Grace looked up at the sky. ‘It won’t be much,’ she predicted. ‘The wind will soon clear those clouds away.’

  They worked on, lifting and carrying, thrusting their spades into the mud to clear the ditch one yard at a time. After an hour their backs ached and red blisters had begun to form on the palms of their hands. Frank, meanwhile, had found a tree to lean against and carried on watching silently.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to box his ears?’ Brenda said in a burst of frustration as he took out yet another cigarette. ‘He’s a lazy so-and-so. Don’t Mr and Mrs Kellett realize that their precious son never lifts a finger?’

  ‘If they do, they don’t do anything about it,’ Grace replied. ‘Emily especially won’t hear a word said against him. And she’s glad for once that he’s stone deaf – it means he won’t be called up. In any case, he’s probably too old.’

  Brenda sighed loudly. ‘That’s enough about Frank Kellett. How’s your brother?’

  ‘He’s doing as well as can be expected.’ Grace’s reply gave little away. She knew that the last thing Edgar wanted was to be the subject of gossip. Of course, she was worried about him – partly because the break in his leg had been slow to heal, but also because the doctors were concerned that he wouldn’t cope with being sent back into action. ‘The mind is an unknown quantity,’ they’d told her when she’d visited Edgar in his convalescent home near York. ‘We can see quite well when the body is mended but we can’t be so sure about what happens to a man’s mental state after his plane is brought down by enemy fire. Onlookers on the ground were afraid that your brother wouldn’t come out of it alive, so of course, he’s extremely lucky. But then there’s the psychological damage.’

  They’d sent him home to complete his recovery and here he was – here but not here, with a vacancy behind his eyes, saying hardly anything and refusing to eat; nothing like the eager young
recruit who had gone willingly to war two years before.

  ‘As well as can be expected, eh? That’s good to hear.’ For once Brenda tapped into a vein of tact and instead of pressing the point she got back to her digging. When she looked up again, she found that Frank had disappeared. ‘Where did he slink off to?’ she wondered out loud.

  It wasn’t long before they found out, because Una came running from the top of the field. ‘Did you see that?’ she cried. ‘Frank Kellett crept up on me when I wasn’t looking and scared the life out of me.’

  ‘Why, what did he do?’ Grace put down her spade and climbed out of the ditch.

  ‘He didn’t do anything. I was piling wood onto the bonfire and when I turned round he was just standing there, about three feet away from me, staring right at me.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Looking up the field, Brenda saw that there was now no sign of Frank.

  ‘Nothing. But the way he looked at me gave me the shivers. So I ran down here.’

  ‘Not me. I’d have soon set him straight,’ Brenda declared.

  Grace spoke more slowly. ‘How,’ she asked, ‘when Frank can’t hear a word you say? And you can’t box a man’s ears, as you put it, just for staring.’

  ‘It was silly of me to run away, though.’ Una regretted not standing her ground. ‘He caught me off guard, that’s all.’

  ‘So let’s forget about him, shall we?’ Grace thrust her spade into the mud and carried on digging. ‘It’ll be dark before we know it and we haven’t got through half of what Joe wants us to do.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘The trick is not to let anything get you down,’ Brenda told Una later that evening. She’d offered her a lift into Burnside on the back of her motor bike and here they were, ensconced in a quiet corner of the Blacksmith’s Arms, sipping cider as they sat on a wooden settle close to a roaring fire. The pub was packed, with customers queuing up at the bar.