The Land Girls at Christmas

by Jenny Holmes

  Una went to rummage through the contents of the cardboard box and pulled out rolls of paper streamers together with sprigs of artificial holly, two Chinese lanterns and bundles of silver tinsel.

  ‘Carefully does it,’ Shirley advised as she delved into her handbag. ‘Those streamers tear easily. Here are some drawing-pins to hang them with.’

  Queen Bee rather than Lady Bountiful in her case, Joyce thought with a frown. Shirley was the sort who expected everyone to dance attendance. She noticed that Grace looked flushed and hung back in the corner.

  ‘Don’t let us stop your rehearsal.’ Edith did her best to cover up the strain of her husband’s illness but make-up didn’t disguise the dark shadows under her eyes. While Shirley and her mother helped Una to disentangle the decorations, she went to talk with Grace by the tree.

  ‘All right, everyone.’ Kathleen needed no second telling. ‘Please take your positions onstage for the start of The Skaters’ Waltz.’

  Una was about to obey when Edith stopped her. ‘Mrs Craven told me on the telephone about last night’s break-in. I’ll report events to County Office first thing tomorrow, but I have the authority to allow you to take time off work if necessary. That would be within HQ guidelines.’

  ‘Oh no, I’d much rather not,’ Una assured her before hurrying to join the others.

  This left Edith face to face with Grace as she answered Kathleen’s call to action.

  ‘How is Mr Mostyn?’ Grace managed to ask. Shirley was in her sightline, dishing out orders about where the decorations should hang while her mother inspected the results of the POWs’ decorating efforts. The younger woman wore a gold brooch and matching earrings with a patterned silk scarf around her elegant neck and Grace recognized that there was no one in Burnside anywhere near so self-assured or fashionable as Shirley Foster. She glanced down at her home-made dress of rosebud-patterned crêpe de chine and her heart sank into her boots.

  ‘Thank you for asking, Grace. Vincent is expecting to have an operation tomorrow morning. He’s in good hands.’ Edith’s formal reply gave little away. Her expression was guarded.

  Oh yes – the twitch of the curtain as Grace had walked Bill up the path. She grew convinced that Edith had seen them and of course hadn’t approved.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Bill is due to pick me up and take me to the hospital as soon as he’s driven Shirley and Mrs Foster back to Hawkshead.’

  ‘Please pass on my regards.’ Grace managed a sympathetic smile despite a powerful onrush of unpleasant emotions – a spike of jealousy mixed with sore regret.

  Edith shot her a knowing look. ‘To whom – my husband or my son?’

  ‘To both,’ Grace said firmly. She met Edith’s gaze with a look that implied, It’s all right – we both know the state of play.

  ‘Thank you, I will.’ Edith arched her eyebrows and made sure she had the last word before Grace hurried away.

  ‘If looks could kill …’ Una muttered as Grace joined her onstage. ‘What have you done to upset Her Ladyship this time?’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Did you see Mrs M give Grace the cold shoulder earlier?’ Brenda sat cross-legged on her bed while Una darned a hole in her sock.

  The last thing on Una’s mind was the behaviour of the local Land Army rep. She was basking in a warm glow of memory, reliving every moment of making love with Angelo, examining each sensation, both as it was happening and what she thought about it now. She felt none of the guilt she might have expected. After all, she’d always considered herself to be a nice girl – one who wouldn’t give a man what he wanted before marriage. Only fast girls did that – and once they were found out, their reputations soon became mud. And yet the events of the day had overturned all that she’d observed and held to during her teenaged years. The experience of love had shattered her preconceptions and instead of feeling cheap, she felt the opposite. She was enriched, uplifted and glad.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Brenda asked. ‘And why don’t you answer my question – did you see the look Edith Mostyn gave Grace earlier today? Even making allowances for her old man being poorly, I still thought she was very off-hand.’

  Una made a neat job of the hole in the heel of her work sock then rolled it together with its companion before putting them in the drawer. ‘I did see it,’ she confirmed. ‘I asked Grace what she’d done to upset her.’

  The dress rehearsal hadn’t gone well and Kathleen was currently in Joyce’s room making last-minute adjustments to the programme order. The girls were nervous about Tuesday night’s performance – all except Brenda who was convinced that it would be all right on the night.

  ‘What did she say?’

  Hearing the drone of several planes flying overhead, Una went to the window and looked out at the dark sky. ‘Not much. And I didn’t get a chance to chat with her after we’d finished.’

  ‘Me neither.’ An idea occurred to Brenda and her eyes lit up. ‘I say – how much do you bet that Bill has told his ma about his engagement to Grace? That would have set the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it?’

  Una thought it through. ‘No, now wouldn’t be the best time,’ she decided. ‘Not while his father is in hospital waiting for his operation. According to Grace, that was the whole reason for keeping it secret in the first place – he didn’t want to worry them. Not that wanting to marry Grace should upset anyone, in my opinion.’

  ‘Then why else would Mrs M have taken umbrage?’

  ‘Who knows?’ The drone of the engines faded and Una returned to her bed. She kicked off her slippers and slid between the sheets.

  ‘I bet you a shilling,’ Brenda insisted.

  ‘Done.’ She was worn out. As soon as she closed her eyes she began to drift off to sleep.

  ‘Poor Grace – I wouldn’t fancy having Mrs M as my mother-in-law. Mind you, Grace might seem meek and mild but deep down she’s made of sterner stuff. If Bill really has made up his mind to set the record straight with the Aged Ps, there might be a baptism of fire for the pair of them to go through but I reckon Grace will emerge unscathed.’

  ‘I’m sure she will.’ Una’s drowsy agreement did nothing to halt Brenda’s chatter.

  ‘You’ll have your Angelo and Grace will have her Bill, but what about poor little wallflower me? Where’s my knight in shining armour? Who’s going to whisk me away?’

  Una smiled as she turned onto her side and peered out from under her bed clothes. ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Yes, cross my heart. I have no beau within my sights now that I’ve found out Bill Mostyn’s spoken for.’

  ‘Let me think of a list of eligible bachelors for you, then. Oh yes, there’s Jack Hudson, Neville Thomson—’

  ‘Nev! Oh, please!’

  Una went on rattling off names. ‘Squadron Leader Aldridge, Flight Lieutenant Mackenzie, any number of Canadian pilots, Lorenzo—’

  ‘Never in a month of Sundays!’ Brenda declared. ‘With a man like Lorenzo you’d have to fight your way through all the competition. I don’t have time for that.’

  ‘Mac, then?’

  ‘Now, that’s more like it.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s had a soft spot for you from the moment you hopped off your motor bike in your airman’s jacket.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Brenda sounded pleased. It would take a little while to forget the frisson that had passed between her and Bill in the smelly old boiler room but snapping up a handsome Canadian might help her along that road. Tuesday was coming up fast and Mac had promised to be there. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Good. Can I go to sleep now?’ Una pulled the blankets over her head.

  ‘Sorry – yes. I’ll close the curtains and turn off the light.’

  Brenda’s hand was on the curtain when she heard it – the growl of an aircraft’s engines approaching from the north. At first she didn’t see anything but there was a dull thud in the distance followed by a flash and then it was repeated – a thud then a second flash. ‘Come and take a look,’ she told Una. The
throaty noise grew louder. The plane seemed to be flying low to the ground but there’d been no more flashes and now she couldn’t see anything except the snow-covered hills beyond the copse of elms that stood dark and still against a white background.

  Una grumbled as she got out of bed. ‘What am I meant to be looking at?’ What else besides darkness and a thick ground mist settled amongst the trees – no wind, no movement in the frozen world?

  There was a third heavy thud and an almost simultaneous orange flash that illuminated the horizon. Una and Brenda saw the outline of a single plane as it crested the ridge, listing heavily, one wing almost touching the ground. Then it was dark again.

  ‘Something’s up.’ Una cut out her own reflection by pressing her face against the window pane. ‘The pilot has had to jettison his bombs.’

  ‘That would account for the explosions,’ Brenda agreed, her pulse quickening. ‘I wonder if it’s one of ours.’

  It happened a fourth time – a flash lit up the sky and in that instant they made out the Luftwaffe’s black cross on the plane’s fuselage. It was possibly a mile away, heading straight for the house. The nose was down, the engines choking and grinding before they cut out completely.

  Darkness again and now an uncanny silence. A German pilot was gliding earthwards, dropping out of the night sky.

  Brenda and Una stood back from the window. Una reached for her coat, Brenda for her leather jacket, and both slid their feet into their wellingtons. They were out of the door and heading along the landing before any of the other girls. They ran down the stairs and out through the kitchen into the yard, sprinting towards the copse.

  Within seconds the whole hostel was alive with shocked voices and hasty, jostling movements.

  ‘A plane … heading this way … German … bombs.’

  ‘Are we sure it’s Jerry?’ Elsie stood on the landing and spoke urgently to Joyce and Kathleen.

  ‘That’s what it looked like.’ Joyce had caught sight of the slim, pencil-like shape of the stricken plane and the black-cross emblem. ‘It had a twin tail fin. I’ve seen pictures of Dorniers on Pathé News. I think it’s one of them.’

  ‘What if he drops the last of his bombs on us?’ Ivy demanded as she came out of her room with Jean and Dorothy. She held her hands to her mouth as if to push back the mounting fear.

  ‘We’ll be done for – that’s what.’ Jean was fully dressed but by no means eager to be first on the scene.

  Dorothy was the voice of reason. ‘He can’t do that, silly. His engines cut out before he got here. He’s taken a nose dive onto the fell behind us – that’s what’s happened to our Jerry friend.’

  By this time, Una and Brenda were running through the vegetable garden towards the elms. Snow hampered them and their feet slid from under them.

  ‘I wish we’d brought a torch.’ Una fought her way through some undergrowth at the edge of the copse. She caught hold of a low branch and ducked under it. Gradually her eyes got used to the darkness.

  ‘And we’d be better off without this fog.’ Brenda too was making slow progress through the thick mist that had gathered in the valley bottom. The muffled silence was an eerie contrast to the earlier guttural roar of the plane’s engines. ‘I didn’t hear it hit the ground – did you?’

  ‘No, I just heard the engines cut out.’ A plane without power would make a crash-landing at best. At worst it would plummet from the sky and be smashed to smithereens.

  ‘We might easily be on the wrong track.’ Brenda paused in a small clearing and stamped her feet for warmth. She strained to hear anything unusual – the slow churning of propellers or the settling of metal fuselage into soft snow – even the sound of a survivor calling for help. But there was nothing.

  Una caught her breath. ‘We did see it, didn’t we? We didn’t make it up?’

  ‘Yes, it was a Jerry. We saw his bombs explode. The question is, where exactly did he come down?’

  Una gathered herself together by looking up through the fog towards a faint moon. Yes, there was a war on, she realized, but it had never come so close to where she lived and worked until this terrifying moment. Yes, there was rationing and ‘V’ for Victory, air raids and the Home Guard, but it was what you read in the newspapers and heard on the wireless. The war happened in big cities and vital ports, on the north coast of France, in Hong Kong, in far-flung places – not on your doorstep, not here in Burnside.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Brenda said suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A sort of cry – ahead and slightly to our right. Listen.’

  Una strained to hear. Yes – a faint, reedy cry, but hardly human. ‘Is it an animal caught in a trap?’

  Brenda shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Let’s go and find out.’

  So they struggled on in the direction of the sound, sinking into snow drifts until, after ten minutes or so, they cleared the fog-bound trees and stood out in the open, looking up the fell towards the ridge where they’d last seen the German plane. The slope was steep and smooth, unmarked except for a large, dark shape resting on the ground to the far side of a low stone wall.

  ‘That must be it.’ Una glanced at Brenda and was surprised by the look of uncertainty on her face. ‘What else can it be?’

  ‘You’re right.’ Taking a deep breath to overcome a sudden squeamishness, Brenda struck out up the hillside. ‘This could be nasty,’ she warned. ‘We might find someone still alive. On the other hand …’

  ‘We don’t know yet.’ The thought of helping a survivor spurred Una on. ‘If that really was a person calling for help, the sooner we get there the better.’

  ‘I’m still saying, be prepared.’ Brenda was talking to herself as much as to Una. She pictured crushed limbs, mangled bodies and who knew how many victims – one or two, maybe more.

  Edgar was awake when the plane came down. He heard the distant sound of the engines – Dornier Do 17, night fighter with twin propellers, a Fliegender Bleistift, a Schnellbomber. There were four thuds in all and then the engines cut out.

  Grace heard it too and rushed downstairs. When she didn’t find her brother in the house, she went into the forge and saw him pacing the floor.

  ‘Four five hundred and fifty-pound bombs dropped on the hills above Fieldhead,’ he told her with dead certainty.

  She gasped and held her breath. ‘Fieldhead?’ she echoed.

  ‘Yes. Within a mile or so. A last-ditch effort to lighten his load, I should say.’

  ‘Fieldhead? Edgar, we have to go and find out what’s happened!’

  Out on the street, villagers emerged from their houses and congregated in the pub yard. The Baxendale brothers were all for driving out to the scene, along with Jack Hudson. Bill drove his car up the street to join them.

  ‘Maurice reckons the plane came down practically on top of Fieldhead,’ Jack reported. ‘He had a pair of binoculars handy – saw everything from his attic window.’

  ‘I only heard it, I didn’t see it. Let’s hope it missed the hostel.’ Bill left his car ticking over then ran into the pub to share his information with Grace. He found her and Edgar fully dressed and putting on their coats. ‘Come on – I’ll give you a lift out,’ he offered without preliminaries. Within seconds they’d followed him outside and got into the back seat of his car. He pulled out of the yard into the road ahead of the Baxendales in one car and Grace’s father, Roland Thomson and Horace Turnbull in another. The three old men had been holding a late-night cribbage session in the back room of the pub when they’d heard and seen the bombs go off and were determined not to miss the sight of wreckage spread across the hills.

  ‘Edgar knows what type of plane it is,’ Grace told Bill. She had to hold on to the seat in front to stop herself from sliding into Edgar as Bill took a bend at speed. ‘Tell him,’ she urged.

  ‘Dornier Do 17 – built for speed, outruns anything else in the sky, including a Spitfire. Hard to hit. Attack range – four hundred nautical miles. Four men maximum: pilot, b
ombardier, two gunners.’ Edgar spoke as if skimming through a textbook.

  ‘Well, something hit it tonight – that much we know.’ Bill put his foot on the accelerator for the straight stretch of road ahead, ignoring patches of freezing mist. ‘Or else why would it be limping home alone?’

  Edgar didn’t speculate. Instead, he stuck to the facts. ‘He went out with a couple of others. I heard them fly over.’

  ‘And you think its target might have been Thornley Dam?’ The reservoir supplied water to Leeds, Bradford and many of the surrounding towns so a direct hit would have a big effect.

  ‘This isn’t the first time they’ve tried it,’ Grace said when Edgar didn’t reply. He sat next to her with his fists clenched, staring straight ahead. She fell silent and prayed that the plane had come down before it reached the hostel. Behind them was a lengthening procession of cars and vans, followed by men and boys on bikes, stretching back for half a mile – perhaps thirty people in all.

  ‘Yes and they failed last time.’ Bill gripped the wheel. It would be all too easy to skid off the road on an icy stretch. Eyes straight ahead, minutes ticking by, none of them knowing what they would find.

  Out at Fieldhead, Hilda Craven took charge.

  ‘I’m warden here and what I say goes,’ she insisted once she’d emerged from her bedroom at the front of the house – a sturdy, large-busted figure in a hand-knitted fawn jumper and brown skirt. ‘I don’t want heroics or anyone grabbing the limelight.’ She looked from Joyce to Elsie to Kathleen as she spoke. ‘Remember, we’re Land Girls – we drive tractors and clear ditches. In other words, we stand by and let others take centre stage.’

  The girls were assembled in the main hallway, some fully dressed and some in nightclothes, all nervously passing comment in undertones and nudging each other as the warden took up position by the main door and gave her speech.

  Joyce was the first to object. ‘That’s all very well, Mrs Craven, but what are we meant to do when a plane comes down on our doorstep – sit here and twiddle our thumbs?’

  ‘A German plane,’ Jean said pointedly.