‘They won’t invade us, will they, Farmer Snell, like they have Belgium? We’re an island, and the water’ll protect us like it always has, won’t it?’
‘Don’t you worry, Felicity dear. Britannia still rules the waves.’ Farmer Snell gave his wife a comforting smile. ‘Safe as houses here we’ll be. It’s those as go to fight that’ll be facing the danger.’
‘Well, I’ve always had a bone to pick with the Lord for not granting us any chiller. But now I thank Him for not giving us any sons to worry over,’ Felicity sighed with vehemence. And then, as her eyes met Grace’s across the kitchen table, they widened in horrified shame and her hand went over her mouth. ‘Oh, Grace, dear, I’m so sorry. Your brother … Poor Temperance will be out of her mind.’
Grace pretended to be casual, although her insides were churning. ‘Oh, he’s only in the Territorials, so he’s highly unlikely to be doing any fighting. Just being prepared. Just in case.’
Her mouth lifted in a half-hearted smile. That was what Stephen had said when he had told their parents that he had enlisted and their mother had almost fainted on the spot. And now Grace was saying the same thing, her words meant to reassure herself as much as Mrs Snell.
‘Well, this won’t get the bread baked,’ she declared, wanting to blank the whole matter from her mind, and she directed all her misgivings into pummelling the dough.
They stood in the centre of the village’s triangular-shaped ‘square’, the seven young men, sons of Walkhampton families, who had so far joined up to fight for their country – or to set off on a wondrous adventure, to judge by the glowing anticipation on their faces. Grace’s brother, Stephen, and Joe Allawell from one of the cottages opposite the pub were off to rendezvous with the other members of the Tavistock Territorials that Joe had also signed up to before war had been declared. By coincidence, the five village lads who had answered the call to the new volunteer army were to leave for Exeter on the same day. Among them was Martin Vencombe whom the recruiting officer had said was bound to be taken off to train as a non-commissioned officer.
‘I just wanted to slip away without any fuss,’ Stephen had confessed to Grace. ‘Would’ve been better for Mum, I reckons. But you knows the village folk wanted to make summat special of it, and it seemed ungrateful when they’d made such an effort.’
Certainly the whole village appeared to have turned out. Four members of the Tavistock band had offered to attend and were performing their military repertoire by the little bridge. Colourful bunting had been strung between the Vencombe residence and the house on the opposite side of the brook, and flapped patriotically in the August breeze. Although it was only mid-morning, Mr Brown had set up his trestle table in the square and had provided sandwiches, while women came out of their cottages carrying pots of hot tea. Uncomprehending children dashed about, happy not to be helping in the fields of fodder crops around the village, or whatever other tasks they were normally put to during the school holidays.
Grace fingered the buttons on Stephen’s khaki jacket, in her nervousness unsure of what to say to the brother she had always been so close to. ‘You’m proper handsome in your uniform, even if you’m an ugly old devil,’ she tried to joke.
Stephen’s eyes, the same cornflower blue as her own, smiled back. He grabbed the arm of their younger brother, George, as he raced past them in some hare-brained game, swinging him round to face them. ‘Hear that, did you? Grace has finally admitted that I’s handsome!’ he chortled.
‘Oh, yes?’
George pulled a face and then broke away to chase after his friends. Faith and Maggie, though, were staring up at this big brother they hardly recognized in his strange attire, and little Maggie had her thumb firmly plugged in her rosebud mouth. Stephen knelt down and picked them up, one in each arm, laughing and jiggling them up and down in a pretence of jollity.
‘I baked you a cake. In case they doesn’t feed you proper like.’ Temperance, her eyes red-rimmed, held out a package to her son. ‘You … you will take care of yourself now,’ she barely croaked.
‘I’s only going to Salisbury Plain!’
Stephen stood his little sisters back on their feet and gave a reassuring laugh. It was too much for Grace to see the anguish on her mother’s face, and she had to move off into the crowd before the lump in her own throat became unbearable. She did feel proud of Stephen in an odd way, but she would miss him terribly. And if the worst came to the worst and Britain was invaded…. But then they would all have something pretty serious to worry about, wouldn’t they?
The sudden sight of Agatha Nonnacott, almost draped around Martin Vencombe, sickened Grace at such a time. The girl had one arm about Martin’s neck, eyeing him coquettishly. It was lucky Aggie’s strict, lay-preacher father was at work and not there to witness his daughter’s behaviour, and her mother was a recluse who never left the house. But Martin seemed to be relishing Aggie’s attention, his face burnished with excitement.
‘My, won’t you be mortal handsome when you get your uniform?’ Grace heard Aggie’s smooth, oily voice. ‘You will let me see you in it when you come home on leave, won’t you?’
‘Of course, Aggie!’ Martin grinned, placing his hand over his heart in a melodramatic gesture. And then he bent to whisper in her ear something that Grace was glad she didn’t hear from the lascivious expression that came over the girl’s face. And then, as Aggie threw up her head with a tittering laugh, she threw Grace a sneer and strutted over to the other volunteers.
Grace felt her blood boil and was overwhelmed with relief as Larry appeared behind her.
‘This is it, then, brother,’ he announced, jabbing his head towards where the vicar was holding up his arms to attract everyone’s attention. ‘Here, something for you. No drinking on duty, mind.’
Grace saw him slip a hip-flask into Martin’s hand, but Martin only had the chance to nod his thanks before the crowd fell silent for the vicar to give a brief address followed by a short blessing. The tension was broken then by the clip-clop of horses’ hoofs as Mr Vencombe senior drove a brand-new wagon across the bridge.
The gay frivolity faded from Martin’s face. ‘Time to go, then.’ And his chest expanded in a sigh of sudden reluctance.
‘Good luck, Martin.’
Grace felt her throat tighten and she stood on tiptoe to brush a kiss on his cheek before leaving him clapped in Larry’s arms. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mrs Vencombe hurry forward. Grace turned away. She had her own sadness to deal with. She took a deep breath, steeling her nerves, and hurried back to where she had left her brother.
Stephen was locked in a crushing embrace between Ernest and Temperance, his head bent as he tried to comfort his mother who was now weeping openly. The little ones were standing in a bewildered huddle beside them, and Stephen broke away, relinquishing his distraught mother into his father’s arms in order to give his young siblings a final hug. But Temperance at once dragged her firstborn to her bosom again, and Ernest had to use some force to peel her hands from their son’s uniform. It was only as he picked up his army-issue haversack to join his comrades as they climbed onto the wagon, that Stephen met Grace’s gaze.
They stared at each other in silence. No words. No time. Stephen glanced at the wagon. Everyone else was on board. A train to catch. Report for duty, must not be late.
‘Grace,’ she heard him murmur.
Then he was on the back of the wagon, legs dangling in a seemingly casual manner over the end, waving, as the vehicle he had helped to make began to trundle off up the hill. The villagers cheering and shouting, the little band playing, and everyone waving until the wagon moved out of sight.
The crowd turned away, slowly dispersing, wondering with trepidation how life would feel now and what the future might hold. The festive atmosphere had dissipated into thin air, and hearts were suddenly empty. There were audible sighs, mutterings. The musicians packed up their instruments, villagers cleared away the remains of the refreshments.
Grace
watched her father comforting her mother as they made their way back towards their cottage. She saw Martha, bless her, run up and put her arms, too, about Temperance’s frail shoulders, and they all disappeared inside, taking the younger children with them and leaving Grace feeling oddly alone. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she was deeply grateful to find Larry there.
‘Going to feel strange for a while, isn’t it?’ he said in his familiar frank but solid way. ‘It’ll be the same in towns and villages all over the country. All over Europe, in fact, whichever side you’re on.’
Grace raised a surprised eyebrow. She had never thought of it like that. But then Larry always saw every side of an argument.
‘You weren’t going with them to the station, then?’ she said limply.
‘No. I thought I’d stay here to support Mother, but see, she’s busied herself clearing away. Her way of coping, I suppose. A very practical woman, our mother.’
‘I suppose we’ll all find our own ways to cope.’
‘Well, just you and me, now Martin and Stephen are gone. Till it’s all over and they’re back home again.’
Grace nodded. She knew what he meant. The clan – the three boys and her as their little sister – had somehow gravitated together since childhood, even though Larry and Martin were some years older. There were others of a similar age to Grace in the village, Aggie Nonnacott for instance, but she and Stephen had always preferred the company of the jocular Martin and the sombre Larry. And now. …
‘Back to work for me, I reckons.’ Martha’s Barry broke into her thoughts as he puffed past them.
‘Martha’s been so kind to Mummy these last weeks,’ Grace answered. ‘She really seems to understand.’
‘Well, she would, wouldn’t she, with our Horace always having been in the Navy and all?’
His words were spoken with quiet acceptance, yet they sliced into Grace’s heart. Yes, of course. This horrible war was going to affect them all. No one knew to what extent as yet. Grace could only pray that the young men who had left the village on such a great adventure would return to it with equal celebration.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘MORNING, GRACE. HAVEN’T seen you here in a while.’
Larry was not alone in the workshop, but he was the only one who did more than nod his head in greeting. He was sitting astride the spoke horse, carefully finishing off a sturdy but handsomely shaped wheel spoke with a spoke-shave; he glanced up with a warm smile as Grace came towards him.
It was just what Grace needed to put her at ease. She had been actively avoiding the wheelwrights’, or more precisely John Sampson. She could not shake from her memory the image of him up at the stables that day, and still blamed him to some extent for her not speaking to Martin. But time had allowed her to reason that Stephen might well have joined the Territorial Army anyway, and the way things were going in France, it was probably as well that his military service would be confined to England.
But she didn’t want to arouse Larry’s suspicions in any way, so she merely shrugged. ‘Oh, I’ve been busy. You know, this and that.’
‘So what brings you here today? A day off?’
‘Not a whole day. I’ve been doing the laundry since six o’clock this morning and now it’s all on the line. So Mrs Snell’s given me a few hours off as I’ll be ironing all evening. And I’ve got a message for you from Farmer Snell. That spoke’s coming loose on the dogcart again, he says, and please can you mend it for him.’
Larry puffed out his cheeks. ‘I told him to let me mend it properly for him last time instead of doing a temporary repair. Or better still, have us make him a completely new wheel. It wasn’t of our making in the first place, I hasten to add. Bought that cart from God knows where, he did. But now, well, we’re rushed off our feet. You can see how busy we are with being three men down.’
‘Three?’
‘Yes. Reg has enlisted now as well. He’d have done so earlier, but when he heard about the send-off the village had planned, he didn’t fancy being one of the objects of such attention. He went off quietly a few days ago.’
‘Poor Sybil.’ Grace’s thoughts went immediately to Reg’s young lady.
‘Dad wasn’t too pleased with it being one of our busiest times of year. Farmers finding their wagons aren’t up to the harvest and needing them repaired immediately or wanting new ones almost straight away. You know how people come to us from far and wide. You don’t mind if I get on?’ He leant back, closing one eye to measure up expertly the shape of the spoke before drawing the spoke-shave along it again. ‘Have you heard from Stephen?’
‘Yes. He’m enjoying himself. Salisbury Plain’s a bit like Dartmoor in a way, only not as dramatic, he says. He’s been to Stonehenge. I remember learning about that at school. He says it’s really impressive, far bigger than any of the old stone circles we have on the moor. Trekked over to watch the sunrise there, he and Joe did, when they had a twenty-four hour pass. He says it were amazing.’
‘Everything all right with him, then.’
It was a statement rather than a question, so Grace felt no need to reply. But it was so easy to talk to Larry. He had such an unruffled attitude to everything. At least, he always saw the reality of every situation, even if Grace could see in his eyes if it was something that troubled him.
‘What about Martin?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Has he written?’
A rueful smile twitched at Larry’s mouth. ‘Briefly,’ he snorted. ‘Not a great one for letter-writing is Martin, as you might expect. You know he’s been creamed off to train as a non-commissioned officer? Well, seems he’s a natural crack-shot with a pistol and a rifle. Quite proud of that, he is. Lucky to have the things to train with. By all accounts, the ordinary recruits hardly have any weapons, and nobody’s got any uniforms yet at all. Can’t tell us where he is for the sake of security, or so he says. Not that I believe that for a minute. Not while he’s training, at least. That’s just Martin wringing as much drama as he can from the situation.’
Grace gave a light chuckle. ‘Yes, I can imagine. But does that mean you can’t write back to him?’
‘Oh, no. We’ve a central address, and then they forward post on.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Grace nodded pensively. ‘Martha’s always done that with Horace. You know, before now, I’d never really thought how it must be for her and Barry, having a son away in the Royal Navy. Martha’s always so cheerful, but she must miss him terribly. And now she and Barry must be so worried about him and all.’
‘I’m sure they are. I know they say that our navy’s three or four times stronger than Germany’s, especially now it’s joined forces with the small fleet Russia has. But the Germans are bound to try and put it to the test.’
‘Yes.’ Grace released a heartfelt sigh. ‘If things get worse—’
‘Which they are.’ Larry paused at the end of a stroke with the spoke-shave. ‘You’ve read about the retreat at Mons, I suppose?’
‘Yes. But hopefully as we send more soldiers over, we can attack again and drive the Germans back.’ Grace’s eyes travelled about the workshop and she was pleased to see that John Sampson was getting on with his work without so much as a glance in her direction. ‘Everything’s so normal and peaceful here, it’s hard to imagine—’
Just as she spoke, Bob, the Vencombe’s carpenter, released the lever on the mechanism that was driven by the waterwheel outside, and the machinery sprang into life. Cogs clunked and turned, drive belts began to whir and then came the high-pitched whistle of the circular saw as it powered through a hefty elm trunk that was being cut into lengths ready to be fashioned into cartwheel hubs.
‘Peaceful, did you say?’ Larry gave his rare grin. ‘And what about you, Grace?’ He raised his voice to make himself heard. ‘Have you joined the Suffragettes yet?’
‘The Suffragettes?’ she repeated in surprise. She felt her cheeks colour slightly, since for all her heated indignation over the cause she had felt so strongly about, she had scarcely given it
a thought since war had been declared. And it was partly because of her obsession over it that she had never had that all important conversation with Martin. It was water under the bridge now, but she still felt ashamed whenever the memory of it crossed her mind. ‘Well, no,’ she admitted. ‘It doesn’t seem so important now. Once the war’s over, I’ll join, mind. In the meantime, maybe there’ll be summat I can do to help with the war instead. But it’d have to be something that weren’t to do directly with killing Germans.’
‘I don’t think you’d ever be asked to do that,’ Larry said quietly, and then casting his experienced eye along the spoke one last time, he went on, ‘There, that’s finished.’
He removed his foot from the treadle, thus releasing the spoke from its clamp, and stood up from the horse in order to stack the spoke with another finished one. Then he went to pick up another tenon, or length of oak that had already been given its basic spoke shape on the machine copier. Grace instinctively went to help him. She had spent so much of her young life in the workshop, that she knew exactly what was needed, and helped Larry position the piece of wood on the horse.
‘Thanks, Grace,’ Larry said, sitting back on the spoke horse. ‘That’s saved me a minute, and every second counts just now. Dad and I are having to work full-time in the workshop. I don’t know how on earth we’re going to keep up with all the paperwork and ordering supplies for the timber yard and everything else we have to do. Unless we can find another wheelwright from somewhere, we’re just going to get further and further behind.’
He paused to flex his shoulders, working them round in circles, and then stretching his back. Grace took the opportunity to run her hand up and down the surface of the tenon, feeling the strength of the wood beneath her touch.
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