The Land Girls at Christmas

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘A plane came down behind the hostel. Didn’t you hear it?’

  ‘I don’t hear a thing once I’ve gone off to sleep – not unless the dog wakes me.’

  Brenda still kept a wary distance. ‘It’s a German bomber. One of the crew’s made a run for it. There’s a search party from the village looking for him. You haven’t seen anything unusual, by any chance?’

  ‘No, I was dead to the world, like I said.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Peggy’s world-weary lack of curiosity bothered Brenda. Then again, if you got to her age and had lived through all the major catastrophes that the century had had to offer, perhaps you just went around in your own little world, scraping a living and enduring, sleeping through it all.

  ‘I’ve told you twice, haven’t I?’

  ‘So you don’t know what set your dog off?’

  ‘I have no clue.’

  Brenda was getting nowhere fast. She glanced back towards the hostel to see that the van that had been turning in the lane had backed itself into the ditch. A couple of men armed with shovels were trying to dig it out. Nothing was going right, it seemed.

  Una was so cold she thought she would die. She hunched forward in the foul-smelling barn as her wet clothes clung to her and her whole body shook. The gunner stood over her, alert to noises outside the building.

  The dog barked again; footsteps crunched over the snow towards the roadside farm. In the distance, an engine started then after a while there was the sound of tyres spinning followed by men’s angry voices. He pulled Una to her feet and pressed his hand over her mouth. She bit his palm.

  The airman snatched his hand away and swore. A second later he’d seized an old sickle that lay in the straw beside a hoe and a pitchfork and come back at her, threatening her with the rusty blade, making her back away until she collided with a wooden stall and slid to the floor. He went down on his haunches and pressed his face into hers, glaring and issuing threats that she didn’t understand.

  Something clicked in her brain – a sudden switch from hammering fear to uncanny calm. She grew detached, almost separate from what was happening – from the curved blade and the gunner’s dark anger, from her own desperate, bone-chilling cold. What would be would be.

  He stood up and pressed a finger to his lips, gesturing for her to stay quiet as he went to the door and listened to the sound of two women talking. He could hear the low growl of the dog against the questioning rise of the younger woman’s voice and the flat, brief answers of the older one.

  Una looked around. She considered climbing the ladder and easing herself through the loft window as a means of escape. She could jump from there into the soft landing provided by the snow.

  As if he’d read her mind, the gunner strode back and jabbed at her with the sickle.

  ‘Stille … ruhe!’

  Una put her hands up in surrender. ‘I won’t make a noise,’ she promised as she stood up. ‘If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone you’re here.’

  ‘Hier?’ he repeated in a rasping voice. He lowered the farm implement and studied her face, all the while picking up sounds from outside. Along the road, the two women had stopped speaking. In the opposite direction, the engine whined and tyres skidded.

  ‘I won’t,’ she vowed, low but clear. ‘Let me go and I’ll keep quiet – stille. I won’t say a word. You can have all the time you need to get away.’

  He shook his head. ‘Verstehe nicht.’ The girl had pointed towards the door and then at herself – a gesture that she repeated twice before she put a finger to her lips. Did she mean that she wouldn’t betray him? He didn’t trust her. ‘Nein.’ She was too useful. She had to stay.

  There was a force in him too strong for her to overcome – a blind will-power projected by his wide stance, broad shoulders and brutally cropped hair, and in the fierce directness of his gaze. Still Una didn’t give in. ‘We saved you from the crash, remember? We heard you calling out and knew you were alive.’

  There was nothing here that he understood, though she pointed towards the hill that rose steeply behind them. Alive – lebendig – perhaps that was what she meant. She spoke as if she was not afraid and this surprised him. She should be afraid – he was the enemy.

  ‘Let me go,’ she said again, as if repetition would make him understand. ‘I won’t tell anyone you’re here. You can stay until everyone has gone home, until it’s daylight. Then you’ll have more chance of getting away.’

  Her words wormed themselves into his firm resolve. Her eyes were deep and clear and she spoke softly, as if murmuring a charm. ‘Nein,’ he said again. He recognized how vulnerable he was – injured and bleeding, bruised from the crash, alone in foreign territory, with a search party on his heels. Men like that were not gentle. They were like a pack of hunting dogs chasing a deer – they would tear him apart. ‘Nein.’

  Grace and Bill climbed the wall into the lane to find the back end of Maurice’s van stuck in the ditch. The silence was broken by wheels skidding and men shouting, the dark sky pierced by headlight beams. They ran towards them while Bob and Jack armed themselves with spades and began to dig Maurice out.

  Grace made a beeline for Neville, who was lounging nearby. ‘Where’s Edgar? Have you seen him?’

  Neville jerked his thumb towards the house. ‘In there with Joyce.’

  ‘And have you seen Una or Brenda?’

  He shook his head then answered Jack’s call to lend a hand. There were five men altogether, pushing with all their might, but they couldn’t shift the van and nothing could get past until they got it out of the way.

  ‘Are you two looking for Brenda?’ While the men pushed, Maurice kept his foot on the accelerator and leaned out the window to talk to Bill. ‘I spotted her down the road, heading for Peggy Russell’s place.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘A few minutes back. She set the dog off.’

  ‘Perhaps she was onto something.’ Bill was the one who decided they should go and find out. He and Grace squeezed past the van and hurried on. When they reached the barn, Grace waved and called Brenda’s name.

  Brenda heard her and said a quick goodbye to a disgruntled Peggy. ‘Sorry to wake you up. You should get back inside and keep warm.’

  Peggy nodded and closed the door while Brenda ran to meet Grace and Bill. ‘Is Una still missing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Grace replied. ‘We’ve followed her footprints, along with another set that could belong to one of the Germans.’ The seriousness of the situation hung in the air as they glanced up and down the lane.

  From inside the barn, Una heard every word they said. They must have stopped directly outside the door, to judge by the clarity of their voices. All she had to do was to let out a single cry for help.

  The gunner’s expression changed in an instant – no longer glaring but narrow-eyed and furtive. Realizing he was cornered, he lowered the sickle to the ground and glanced up towards the hayloft.

  Una knew she should call out, ‘He’s here!’ Then it would all be over.

  Out on the road, Grace heard a sound from inside the barn – the clink of metal against stone. She held up a warning hand to the others then pointed to the door.

  The gunner’s eyes pleaded with Una. She shook her head. He spun away and climbed the ladder to the loft. With an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, she walked slowly to the door, opened it and found Bill, Brenda and Grace standing there.

  Bill reached out to her. She was trembling and her eyes were wide and dark in her pale face. ‘Are you all right? Where is he?’

  ‘Go around the back,’ she told them in a faint voice.

  Grace and Brenda reacted quickly. They climbed a stile in time to see the gunner leap from the high opening into the field. He jumped ten feet into the snow, gritting his teeth and groaning in agony as he landed awkwardly on his injured leg. He clutched his shoulder and got up, staggered three or four paces before they reached him and dragged him down.

  Bill and Una ran to join them. The gun
ner lay in the snow without attempting to resist, a black shape against a white background, legs together, arms spread wide like a crucified Christ.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The injured airman was eventually bundled into Maurice’s van and whisked away. He’d put on a show of surly defiance but Bill had put himself in charge of the search party and made sure that the prisoner hadn’t been manhandled before they drove him to Beckwith Camp and locked him up in the secure brick building to await instructions from the powers above.

  ‘Your gunner is a POW now,’ Joyce told Una when she brought her breakfast in bed. ‘His wounds will be patched up and he’ll be interrogated.’

  ‘How do you mean – interrogated?’ The word sent a shiver down Una’s spine in spite of the woollen blanket around her shoulders and the hot-water bottle resting on her stomach.

  ‘They’ll ask him a few questions to find out how much he knows about Jerry’s military plans, and such like.’ Joyce didn’t want Una to worry so she kept her explanation brief. ‘Then, as soon as he’s fit to travel, he’ll be sent off to a German POW camp.’

  ‘Bill said they’re not keen on keeping them here in this country.’ Brenda sat at the end of Una’s bed and watched her take the tray from Joyce. ‘They prefer to ship Jerry to camps in Canada and, I suppose, America – now that Roosevelt has brought them into the war at last.’

  The gunner’s face staring out of the back of Maurice’s van as it drove away was the last they’d ever see of him, though Una’s memories of finding him trapped in the mangled fuselage, of his blunt-featured, brutal face as it spat angry words at her in Peggy Russell’s barn would stay with her for ever.

  ‘It’s good to see you haven’t lost your appetite.’ Joyce watched her tuck into her porridge. She and Brenda had an eight o’clock appointment in the warden’s office and were already washed and dressed. ‘We were worried sick about you. It got worse by the minute – we had a vision of you lost in the snow, rapidly turning into a block of ice.’

  ‘But no,’ Brenda said with an encouraging smile. ‘The gunner might have taken you hostage but you kept your presence of mind through it all and waited for your chance. You held your nerve, Una.’

  ‘I only did what anyone else would have done.’ Inwardly she was badly shaken and confused by the previous night’s events, but she chose not to let it show. She would rather hug the details to herself and put on a brave front. ‘And I don’t know why I have to stay in bed. I’d rather get up and go to work.’

  ‘No!’ Brenda stood up and wagged a stern finger. ‘You stay where you are. Joyce and I have to pop down to Ma C’s office. I expect we’ll be sent out to work this morning with a flea in our ears. That doesn’t sound quite right. Should it be “with fleas in our ears”?’

  Una managed a smile as Joyce told Brenda to stop splitting hairs. She waited until they’d left the room before she put down her spoon. The porridge lay heavy on her stomach and her arms were almost too weak to lift the tray and put it on her bedside table. She rested back on her pillow and turned her head to stare out of the window at the grey clouds sagging low over the elm trees. As the clock ticked on, it was no longer the captured gunner’s face that filled her mind, but Angelo’s.

  ‘Come in, girls.’ The warden still wore her fawn jumper and brown skirt. She sat behind a small desk and tapped the end of her pencil decisively onto her pad of blotting paper. Apart from the chair and desk with its squat black telephone, the plain office contained only a small green filing cabinet on top of which was perched a typewriter. The tall window overlooked the front garden where four girls were shovelling snow from the drive. Mrs Craven paused long enough for Brenda and Joyce to take in their surroundings, treating them to a long, hard look as they did so.

  ‘I think you’ll agree that we’ve had enough excitement to see us through Christmas well into the New Year.’

  Joyce used her elbow to give Brenda a warning nudge. Look meek and mild; keep your mouth firmly shut if you want to come out of this in one piece. ‘We have indeed.’

  Unsurprisingly, the warden’s normally friendly gaze was cool. ‘And Una always seems to be in the eye of the storm.’

  Joyce nodded sagely. ‘Yes – Frank Kellett and now the German airman, all within the space of forty-eight hours.’

  Hilda Craven slid her fingers up and down the green pencil then turned it and tapped it again. ‘Luckily she seems none the worse for wear.’

  ‘Una doesn’t let anything get her down.’ Brenda took pride in her room-mate’s resilience. ‘She’s sitting up in bed and tucking into her breakfast, complaining about not being allowed to go to work.’

  ‘No matter – I want her to take things easy.’ Hilda had already telephoned Edith before she left for hospital to discuss how things stood. Understandably, the area rep had left everything in her hands. ‘Mrs Mostyn agrees that Una may be in a state of shock without realizing it. It’s by far the best thing for her to rest. As for you two …’

  Joyce and Brenda stood to attention and expected the worse.

  ‘Joyce – you were also at the centre of last night’s events. I understand that you took care of Edgar Kershaw and made sure that he got safely back to Burnside.’

  ‘Yes. He went home with Bill and Grace at about three o’clock.’ She’d brought him back to the hostel and dabbed disinfectant on his hand then wrapped it in a clean white bandage. He’d been silent throughout, but when it had been time to get into Bill’s car he’d made a point of thanking her.

  ‘You’re very welcome,’ she’d told him on the steps of the main entrance.

  He’d nodded briefly then added, ‘I’m sorry.’ His coat seemed to swamp him. The new bandage stood out in the gloom.

  ‘There’s no need to be.’ She’d gone down the steps and smiled gently. ‘You look after yourself, do you hear?’

  ‘Your kindness to Edgar goes some way towards making up for disobeying my order to stay inside,’ the warden told her now. ‘I’ll mention that when I send in my report.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Things were working out better than expected, so Joyce risked a sideways glance at Brenda who was still waiting anxiously for judgement.

  Hilda tapped her pencil again. Ever since Brenda had arrived, she’d proved to be a handful, with her hat always at a jaunty angle, the sheepskin collar of her pilot’s jacket permanently turned up. If there was a rule to be broken, Brenda was the type who would break it. Equally, she would meet any challenge thrown at her, whether it was standing knee-deep in mud digging ditches or spending all night out on the fell searching for an enemy aircraft.

  ‘My report will also include the fact that – unlike Joyce – you, Brenda, had actually left the hostel with Una before I issued my order. That means that technically you’re in the clear.’

  Brenda shot Joyce a look of astonishment. Thank goodness Ma C is dealing with this and not Mrs M, was her first thought. The warden’s fairness struck her as a rare thing – very rare indeed.

  Hilda dropped her pencil on the desk and sat back in her chair, which creaked as she leaned her weight against it. ‘Don’t look so surprised. And while I’m at it, let me give you a few reminders as to what’s involved when you join the Land Army.’ She counted the points on her plump fingers. ‘For a start, we don’t come under the jurisdiction of any of the three Women’s Auxiliary Services. That means you can’t be shipped from pillar to post as a member of a proper Service unit may be. Secondly, neither Mrs Mostyn nor I have any disciplinary power if you fail to follow orders. Yes, it’s true, Brenda. You’re not subject to military law. Thirdly, even the enrolment papers that you signed, promising to give your services for the duration of the war, are not legally binding.’

  Brenda’s eyes almost popped out of her head. ‘What are you saying – that we’re free to walk away whenever we like?’

  ‘Yes, or to stay and accept a roof over your head and three square meals a day even if you never so much as lift a finger for the war effort.’

  ‘
You don’t say!’ Of course, Brenda had never bothered to read the small print on the enrolment form and by the look of it neither had Joyce. ‘Why are you telling us this? Is it a backhanded way of asking us to leave?’ The notion made both Joyce and Brenda take a short, sharp breath.

  Hilda saw that she’d skewered them good and proper and thrust her weight forward again. ‘Is that what you’d like to do?’

  ‘No!’ they said as one. It was the worst thing they could imagine – walking away from Fieldhead and the other girls, letting their country down when it needed them most.

  ‘Very good. Because, between you and me, all Mrs Mostyn and I have to rely on to keep things on the right track are two things: your willingness to work and your good sense. That applies to every single girl at Fieldhead. We can feed you and clothe you and safeguard your welfare by overseeing the work that the local farmers ask you to do, but that’s the limit of our powers. I’ll say it again: willingness and good sense. That’s what we need from you both.’

  ‘You have it from me!’ Joyce felt the tension melt from her. She pushed her shoulders back, newly determined to live up to the warden’s expectations.

  ‘And from me!’ Brenda echoed. (‘Ma C is a blinking marvel,’ she said later to Elsie and Kathleen. ‘She’s one in a million.’)

  ‘And you have the morning off work from me,’ Hilda told them, standing up and coming out from behind her desk to see them out of the room. ‘Catch up on some sleep or keep Una company. Think about what I’ve said.’

  Bill sat with his mother in a green-tiled corridor of the Queen Victoria hospital. The hushed atmosphere had the effect of building his anxiety to an uncomfortable, chest-tightening pitch. He imagined that the silent, head-in-the-air nurses in their crisp blue-and-white uniforms were conveying bad news from operating theatre to relatives waiting in other corridors and that the harried, overworked doctors with stethoscopes slung around their necks must often make elementary mistakes through sheer exhaustion.