‘Us is being sent to India.’
‘India?’ Now this she wasn’t expecting and her eyes bolted from her head.
‘Yes. We’m leaving next week which is why us was given such a long leave. Only I hasn’t had the courage to tell Mum and Dad yet.’
‘B-but why India?’ Grace stammered. In her mind, India had never come into it. ‘And I thought you said the Territorials were only to defend Britain itself?’
‘They is. Officially, like. Only the government realized some weeks ago that things in Europe is going to be even bigger than they thought. So us was asked if us wanted to go to India to take over from our ordinary troops out there so as they can join the fighting in France. Us doesn’t have to go, but Joe and me decided to volunteer.
‘It’ll be more a case of just being a presence rather than doing any proper fighting. So I thinks to myself, if I stays at home and things get even worse in France, then I could well be sent over there and that’d be far more dangerous. But if I goes to India, it’ll be much safer, and think, Gracie, what an adventure! I’d never expected in all my born days to go to India.’
Grace nodded silently. She appreciated his reasoning, but India was so far away. On another planet. But at least he would be relatively safe.
‘Oh,’ was all she could say, and she opened her arms wide to hug him tightly, fighting the strangling lump in her throat. It was some minutes before she stood back. ‘Well,’ she croaked, ‘it’ll be some while afore you see this view again.’
In an effort to hide her tears, she gesticulated wildly about her. The view in every direction was spectacular, the bleak, windswept wastes of the moor with its dramatic granite tors, the tiny chapel of St Michael’s crowning the steep pinnacle of Brentor far in the distance, while much nearer, the top of the church tower of St Mary’s of Walkhampton was just visible. Usually from this amazing spot, Grace felt on top of the world, her world: Dartmoor. The cradle of her life, but just now that world was crumbling apart.
‘Yes, I’ll miss this place. But it’ll be the opportunity of a lifetime, you does see that, doesn’t you, Gracie?’
Oh, she could have wept. And God knew how their mother would take it. But yes, Grace did understand.
‘And by the time I comes back, you’ll be running the wheelwrights’ the way I sees it!’ Stephen joked.
‘Well,’ Grace laughed back, clinging onto any fragment of light-heartedness that she could, ‘I reckon John’s already worried I’ll be taking over his job,’ she told her brother. ‘Always makes it quite clear what he thinks of women, he does. That we’m inferior beings.’
‘Well, he’ll have met his match in you, Gracie, I be certain!’ But then Stephen’s grin faded, and his eyes, too, misted with unshed tears. ‘Not many cheels in the world like you, that’s for sure. Be a lucky bugger that gets a ring on your finger one day.’
‘Stephen Dannings!’ Grace chided in mock horror. ‘Not so sure about you being in the army if you’m going to learn that sort of language.’
And they fell about each other in forced, desperate laughter.
It had rained steadily all night, and being at the bottom of the mile-long hill, the road outside the cottage was a slippery quagmire. Fifty yards further down, the swollen brook had overflowed into the square. The Vencombes and the people who lived in the house next to the stream on the near side had put sandbags across their front doors, and Joe would have to splash through a couple of inches of water when he called for Stephen. With the rain had come a sharp fall in temperature and it really felt like autumn. George and Faith were in school, having already said their farewells to this brother who seemed god-like in their young eyes, leaving Ernest, Temperance, Grace and little Maggie to huddle with Stephen inside the open cottage door. The waiting was agony, and yet none of them wanted it to end.
‘Joe’s coming,’ Stephen announced, and then turned back to his family. ‘This is it, then. Goodbye, everyone. Wish me luck.’
He smiled at the beloved faces around him, but Grace could see that the light in his eyes was false. A terrible pain raked her throat, but she mustn’t let it show, for her mother’s sake especially. So she returned his smile, but it was all a game, wasn’t it? A little like charades. Hiding the truth, the desperate sorrow that was breaking them all. For when were they likely to see Stephen again? It could be years.
He was half-hidden now in his parents’ embrace, unshed tears glistening in Ernest’s eyes and poor Temperance sobbing. Grace watched as her father peeled her mother’s fingers from Stephen’s lapels and held her against his chest. Grace took Stephen’s hands. There were no more words, just a tightening of their fingers. Then Stephen bent to sweep Maggie into his arms, gave the bewildered child a hearty kiss on the cheek, and then handed her across to her big sister.
‘Time to go, eh, Joe?’ Stephen called as his comrade strode up to them. ‘Goodbye, all. You all take care on yourselves, eh?’ He sprang after Joe who had already begun the long haul up the hill. The Dannings family stepped out into the rain to wave them off, a little group of sadness. Like so many across the country.
‘You will write, won’t you?’ Grace called to Stephen’s back out of a desperate need to break the appalling tension.
‘I promised I would!’ He turned to give one ultimate wave, and then rounded the bend out of sight.
They all stood, staring at the empty road. Grace was hardly aware of her mother rushing past her and running up the lane after her son. Grace’s own misery had paralysed her, and she could only watch as her father, still fit and athletic, dashed forward and caught up with his wife. He went down with her as she collapsed onto her knees in the mud, and Grace, unable to witness such grief, turned into the cottage with little Maggie still in her arms.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘NO, MR VENCOMBE, you can’t possibly let them have Sunny!’
‘Grace, my maid.’ Geoffrey Vencombe looked at the distraught young girl with sympathy in his eyes. ‘Sunny is just the sort of horse the army needs, as happy in harness as being ridden.’
‘But those Canadian troops,’ Grace protested, ‘the ones who paraded through Plymouth last month, it were said they’d brought over eight thousand horses. Surely that’s enough?’
Grace’s gaze desperately sought Larry’s agreement, but even he shook his head slowly. ‘The army will need as many horses as it can get,’ he answered. ‘And look at it this way. Every horse that goes over to France will give a better chance for more of our troops to survive.’
Grace’s eyebrows arched painfully. Oh, Larry. The sad resignation in his expression flowed into her, and she bowed her head in reluctant acceptance. Larry was right, as ever.
‘I suppose so,’ she muttered, though her heart groaned. ‘But I can’t bear to think of what might happen to him. He’s master special—’
‘Yes, he is. And he’ll be doing a special job. So just be proud of him, and try not to think, well, of anything else.’
‘Can I say goodbye to him?’ Her lip was quivering now and she could feel the tightening at the back of her throat that was becoming all too familiar.
‘Of course,’ Geoffrey nodded. ‘I’ll be riding him to the collection point in Tavistock in the morning and coming back on the train.’
Grace gave a sniff and swallowed hard. ‘I’ll go up to the stables now, afore I go back to the farm.’ She turned sadly away, her heart heavy as she went to cross the workshop. Oh, this war was becoming more horrible with every day.
‘Huh, typical of a woman to be silly over a blooming horse!’ she heard John Sampson comment. It was said out of the side of his mouth, but she was obviously meant to hear.
‘For God’s sake, have some compassion, man!’ Larry grated between clenched teeth.
Grace hesitated for all of five seconds. She ought to ignore John’s remark, but she still hadn’t forgotten the episode in the stables. She had never said a word about it for Nan’s sake, but she was sick to death of John’s snide comments here and there. But
now it was too much. Her sorrow over the kind and willing Sunny erupted in a shower of red-hot anger.
‘And that’s typical of you, isn’t it?’ she rounded on the culprit. ‘A man who treats his wife the way you treat poor Nan is bound to have no soul. Women can do more than just sit at home cow-towing to their men-folk, you know! Look at all the women making shell-cases in the factories in Plymouth. Or the nurses and orderlies in the hospitals seeing terrible things and saving men’s lives. Women might not be fighting on the battlefield, but this war will be won through their efforts just as much as men’s, you know!’
She stopped, breathing heavily and her eyes flashing. All the men in the workshop had stopped working, staring at her in amazement, and silence crackled through the chilly air. Grace knew she was in the right and the colour that suffused into John’s face proved it.
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ Larry’s voice was low and steady. ‘But now I think we all need to get on with our work.’
Grace turned grateful eyes on him. Although pent-up fury sizzled in her breast, she was somewhat fearful of what John might say in retaliation. Her tongue had burned to proclaim that while he was happy enough to condemn Sunny to the battlefield, she noticed that he hadn’t volunteered himself! But it would have been thoughtless to say that in front of either Larry who for obvious reasons couldn’t enlist, or anyone else. Everyone had someone to fear for, a brother or a son. So Grace dipped her head graciously in Larry’s direction and walked out of the workshop with as much dignity as she could muster.
Outside in the yard, she took a deep breath to calm the wave of nerves that washed through her. Damn John Sampson! But she supposed that, deep down, everyone was fraught. It was this wretched war. And maybe John was secretly afraid that one day he might be forced to go and fight, and who could blame him? Now that Turkey and the Ottoman Empire had entered the war, it put British troops in India in a whole new position, too, and Grace feared for Stephen. As far as she knew, he would only just have got there! So in a way, she could understand how John might feel.
‘Penny for them, Grace Dannings.’
The smooth, slightly sarcastic voice brought Grace’s head up. Aggie Nonnacott. Dressed in her good quality coat and matching hat against the November chill, and looking down her nose at Grace in that superior way of hers.
It didn’t matter a jot to Grace that the Nonnacott family were better off than most in the village. It was common knowledge that Aggie’s father had been exceptionally bright at school and upon leaving, had secured himself a job as a junior bank clerk in Tavistock, to which he travelled every day from Horrabridge Station. He worked there still, although now as manager. He was also a Methodist lay preacher, but whenever it was his turn to give the sermon, it was so full of hell fire and brimstone that the congregation was left feeling utterly depressed and guilt-ridden. The family occupied one of the few larger houses in the village, and as Mrs Nonnacott had only produced the one child, there had never been any need for Aggie herself to find employment. The only people Aggie considered to be on an acceptable social standing with her were the Vencombes, and even then, it was mainly Martin she liked to associate with.
The altercation with John just now, her heightened anxiety over Stephen and now the thought of the mild-mannered Sunny being ridden into battle, had put Grace just in the right frame of mind to face Aggie’s goading. For goading it was, at least in Grace’s eyes, not so much the words themselves as the way they were spoken, as if any thought Grace might have would be inferior to Aggie’s own. And when Grace recalled Aggie’s behaviour on the day Walkhampton had sent its initial volunteers off to war, it made her seethe, even if Martin had appeared to welcome Aggie’s attentions that day.
‘I don’t think you’d want to know any thoughts of mine, Aggie,’ she retorted. ‘And I doubt you’d have the wit to follow them anyway.’
She knew it was an unkind thing to say as Aggie was actually quite intelligent, but she wasn’t going to let the sneering remark go unchallenged. Aggie had no need to suppress any surprise. She and Grace had known each other since childhood, and the antagonism that had developed between them was only to be expected nowadays. It had come to be a game of words that Aggie, at least, relished.
‘You’d be surprised,’ she answered with a curl of her lip, and walked away with a toss of her head.
Grace watched her go, nostrils flaring. But she had more serious matters to concern her than Aggie’s jibing. Having a few moments alone with dear Sunny was the first she had to deal with. And when she arrived at the stables and the affectionate animal trotted up the sloping field to greet her, Grace was helpless against the torrent of tears that poured down her cheeks.
‘You look bright and perky,’ Larry commented. ‘Is it that hint of spring in the air that’s cheered you up?’
‘No,’ Grace grinned back. ‘We’ve just had a letter from Stephen.’
‘And how is he?’
‘Proper clever, I’m pleased to say. Still training somewhere five hundred miles away from Calcutta.’
‘Not seen anything of the Turks yet, then?’
‘No, thank goodness. And I hope it stays that way. But even if he hadn’t volunteered to go to India, he might’ve seen some action here at home. Look at those awful zeppelin raids over London. Maybe we’m going to be invaded after all,’ she concluded glumly.
Larry’s face, too, clouded. ‘Let’s hope not. With winter coming to an end, the fighting’s bound to start again in earnest over in France, so the Boche will probably put all their efforts in over there. I don’t suppose it’ll be too long before Martin’s battalion is sent there, too.’
‘Perhaps it’ll all be settled afore then,’ Grace said with false optimism.
‘Thanks, Grace, but we all know it won’t.’
Grace’s mouth firmed to a fine line. ‘No, I suppose not. Well, I’d better see what needs doing in the office.’
‘Not a great deal. Or so Dad says from the look of things, the way you have it running so efficiently. So we wondered if you’d like to help out in the workshop a bit more. Maybe we could train you up on the machine-copier. For the lighter stuff anyway.’
‘The machine-copier?’
‘You’ve watched us using it often enough. And I reckon you could manage some initial chiselling as well.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve a feel for the wood. I’ve often seen you, running your fingers along the grain. Following its twists. Dad and I reckon we can make a carpenter of you. No harm trying you out on a few things, anyway.’
Grace bit her lip and glanced around the workshop. Everyone was busy and she was sure no one had overheard their conversation. Nevertheless, she felt nervous when she spied John Sampson hauling in some heavy timber with the help of Derek Gammet, the other general labourer. Grace hadn’t had any more run-ins with John recently, and didn’t want to antagonize him in any way again.
‘What about John or Derek? Surely they’d know more about it than me?’
‘Derek wouldn’t want to touch it. He’s said so before. And John, well, to be honest, when he has done small jobs for us, he’s a bit ham-fisted. Besides, we need his brawn around the place. So,’ Larry ended with an encouraging smile, ‘let us know when you’ve finished in the office, and if there’s time, we’ll get you working on something. Dad wants a word with you, too. He’s thinking of installing one of those bonding plates that drops the wheel into a trough of water when you’ve got the tyre fitted. It would really save time, and that’s of the essence now we’re so short-staffed.’
‘Bonding day wouldn’t be the same, though, would it?’
‘No. But things have to change, Grace. And there’s a war on, you know.’
Larry’s attempt at wry humour brought a wan, reluctant smile to Grace’s lips. Yes, everything was changing, and she wondered if life in Walkhampton would ever return to how it was before the war began. But, on the bright side, though it filled her with trepidation, she couldn’t wait to try her h
and at some of the skills in the workshop. She just hoped she could live up to Larry’s expectations of her!
‘Do you remember that bonding day about a year ago? When we were all wondering if war would really come?’
‘When you had that argument with John about the Suffragettes? Yes, I remember it.’
Grace sucked in her bottom lip at Larry’s reply and gazed wistfully over the gushing waters of the Walkham. It was a Sunday afternoon towards the end of May, the only time of the week when everyone seemed to take a few hours off to recuperate from their strenuous labours. Larry had noticed Grace with her younger brother, George, and their two little sisters sauntering along the village street. Without Martin and Stephen to make up the old foursome, it might have appeared inappropriate for Larry to ask Grace if she would like to go for a walk. But with her siblings in tow, it was perfectly acceptable.
They had wandered together down to the beautiful old stone bridge that spanned the Walkham at Huckworthy, and Larry and Grace were standing in one of the passing places in the parapet. Immediately below them, the clear water was deep, the very spot where the boys used to jump off the bridge and Grace, though she would never admit it, had nearly drowned when she had leapt in after them. Just below the bridge, the river widened, thus becoming shallower, the water splashing and gurgling over large boulders. On one side, a grassy bank dipped to a tiny gravel beach where George, Faith and Maggie were paddling safely in a few inches of water. It was such a tranquil, peaceful scene, and Grace’s heart lurched ruefully.
‘Seems hard to imagine now, doesn’t it,’ she sighed, ‘a time when this war weren’t constantly gnawing away at the back of our minds? They said, if it came, it’d be over by Christmas, and now look at it.’
‘Yes.’ Larry nodded gravely. ‘Neuve Chapelle, they called it, and now another battle at Ypres already this year. So many lives lost, and all the Allies have done is halt the Germans, not driven them back.’
Wheels of Grace Page 7